 
# Some Girls Lie

An Outback Heat Romance  
Book 4

Amy Andrews

Some Girls Lie

Copyright © 2015 Amy Andrews

The Tule Publishing Group, LLC

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-943963-75-1

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## Dedication

_I dedicate this book to all the fabulous cops out there – big city and small town – working their tails off to keep us safe and sound. And to our dedicated domestic violence workers out at the coal face, working their tails off to keep women and children safe and sound – thank you._
Dear Reader

Dear reader,

Thanks for picking up the fourth and final book in the Outback Heat Series. This is older brother Ethan's story and if you're into friends-to-lovers romances then this is the book for you!

There's something about unrequited love that immediately has me rooting for the person who is suffering from it and poor JJ has it bad. She's been in love with her best friend Ethan since she was six years old but has long resigned herself to being his _mate._ It's better than nothing and she's so used to squashing it all down that it's second nature to her. But things are about to change for her – for both of them – and it was wonderful to give these two old friends a deeper, binding connection.

I hope you've enjoyed the trials and tribulations of the Weston family all finding their HEA's in the bosom of Jumbuck Springs. I've certainly enjoyed bringing you this small, fictitious outback town where the hearts are big and the love is even bigger.

## Chapter One

Jemima Jane Ericson, known as JJ to all and sundry, was one drunken pass away from jumping Ethan Weston's bones. He just didn't know it. The last thing she needed was him sitting his sorry butt down on one of her bar stools looking all haggard and destroyed.

Looking like he needed a little sexual healing.

"A bottle of your best Jack, JJ."

JJ stopped drying glasses and turned to face his grim countenance. His stubbly jaw was all square and set, with only the faintest hint of his chin dimple beneath the heavy growth. His cheekbones were harsh and angular beneath the fluorescent lighting. His deep brown eyes roiled and churned with a mix of emotion stronger than the sludge-black coffee he favoured.

JJ's stupid heart did its usual little leap, oblivious to the ebb and flow of the Saturday night crowd. _Damn it_. The man wore sexy better than any male she'd ever known.

Sexy _and_ hurting was just too bloody lethal.

"Don't you think," she asked, trying to derail the inevitable intoxication and subsequent night on her couch, "the chief of police should be setting some kind of an example in a bar?"

"I'm off-duty."

JJ suppressed a snort. Ethan Weston was never off-duty. Every inch of his six-foot-four frame was cop. From the tips of his dark shaggy hair, right down to his size-twelve boots.

"The Jack?" he prompted, laying a fifty on the beer-sodden bar mat. His economy with words was well known.

They regarded each other steadily. Every weary line etched into his handsome face told JJ that Ethan was planning a big one. "Do you think this is a good idea?"

He didn't hesitate, the bleak slash of his mouth barely moving as he said, "Nope."

"Why don't I call Jarrod?" JJ suggested. Ethan's brother would haul his sorry ass home for sure.

His gaze, searing in its intensity, didn't waver. "Why don't I just arrest you?"

She blinked. "For what?"

"For pissing me off."

JJ laughed. "Well now, you'd have to arrest half of Jumbuck Springs if that was a justifiable cause." She was relieved when a ghost of a smile flitted across his mouth briefly, deepening the please-lick-me dimple in his chin.

But it was gone as quickly as it had arrived.

JJ chose her next words carefully. She'd never said a single bad word about Delia to Ethan but she was sick of how the perky blonde had been dragging Ethan's heart around this town for just about forever and even more weary of being good old JJ who picked up the pieces.

As of this afternoon Delia was officially married to Edward Smythe and, as far as JJ was concerned, she was that poor bastard's problem now.

Time for this shit to end.

"Ethan... don't do this," she said, placing her hand on his forearm. The warm muscles bunched beneath her palm, but she refused to withdraw. "She's not worth the whisky."

He drew a coarse breath into his lungs. "Damn it JJ, just get me the bottle," he said, his voice full of gravel.

She met his gaze for another moment and saw the rawness, the misery in his brown eyes. Usually they made her feel as if she was drowning in a vat of golden syrup, but there was nothing sweet in Ethan's gaze tonight.

_Fine._ She'd tried.

She turned to grab the requested bottle from the shelf behind her. "No. Nuh-uh. I want the good stuff. The overproof." He pointed to the doorway behind her. "You keep it out the back."

JJ regarded him seriously. She knew damn well where she kept the good stuff. Ethan returned her gaze unflinchingly.

"I can always go to Joe's," he shrugged.

Right. As if Joe gave a toss about Jumbuck's chief of police steadily wiping himself out. At least here, she could keep him safe from every yahoo with an axe to grind. He was among friends here. She left him standing at the bar while she went out back and retrieved the requested bottle.

She passed it to him but held firm as his hand curled around it. "Corner booth, Ethan," she said, refusing to relinquish it. She could keep an eye on him there.

He nodded and she offered him a glass with her other hand, which he ignored. She sighed as he turned away, tracking his path. His gait was dominated by the broadness of his shoulders, the length of his stride and, like his speech, an economy of movement that spoke volumes about his personality.

Sexiest damn thing she'd ever seen in her life. All loose and liquid.

And despite the blow he'd been dealt this weekend, his spine was straight, as if it was made from titanium, and his head was held high. Even the way he slid into the booth, cracked the lid on the Jack with slow deliberation and took his first swig, showed a man fully in control.

But JJ knew it was about to get messy.

And that she'd be the one picking up the pieces. Again.

An hour and a half later Ethan had worked his way through almost half of the Jack. She suspected it would all be gone now had it not been for the mysterious piece of paper he kept pulling out of his jeans pocket and brooding over for long periods before stuffing back in his pocket again.

The handful of occasions Ethan had entered The Stockman to wipe himself out over the last dozen years had taught her well—the Weston men could hold their liquor. If he stopped now, he'd be relatively sober in a few hours. If she let him get closer to the bottom, Ethan was going to know—intimately—what it felt like to have a twelve-man crew drilling for oil in his grey matter.

And if he didn't, she was going to fill her place up with so much light at six in the morning he was going to want to dig his own eyeballs out.

She headed towards him. _Time for the pity party to end._

She grabbed the bottle from the table and put the cap back on. "You're done," she said.

Ethan's gaze fanned over her like liquid. "Says who?" he asked belligerently.

"Says the publican."

He gave her a goofy smile that practically stole the breath from her lungs. "You're cute when you're bossy. You know that, right?"

JJ rolled her eyes. _Here come the lines_. She took a moment to remind herself that this was Ethan's MO. Getting drunk and flirty. Probably the only time he forgot that Delia had him by the balls. But she had no intention of being a Delia stand-in. "As a button," she quipped. "Now on your feet, officer."

"You taking me to bed?" he smiled.

Hope and lust and sex swirled like Satan through her belly and JJ clenched everything tight to fight against the pull. "Yep. Come on," she said, grabbing his arm. "Up and at 'em."

"This-is-my-lucky-night," he murmured, his words running together, just short of slurring.

Well, it was if he meant Delia remarrying would finally put the kibosh on his unresolved feelings for a selfish little princess who'd never loved him.

If he meant getting laid, not so much.

He stood and slung his arm around her neck, a massive tanned forearm dangling over her shoulder and JJ staggered a little from the weight of him. But it was the smell of him that had her truly reeling—whisky and the peppery-sweet aroma of his liquorice cologne—filling her up with a hundred different memories, pulling at her gut, making her want things she'd resigned herself to not getting a long time ago.

They made it across the bar _without_ Ethan's usual economy of movement. People greeted him with silent nods and understanding words and JJ was thankful he was inebriated enough not to recognise them for what they were—pity.

That would have really pissed him off.

But the truth was that there were very few people who'd lived in Jumbuck Springs for any length of time that weren't aware of the continuing saga of Delia.

"Up the stairs," she said as they pushed through the doors that led out of the barroom.

Ethan automatically swung left, saying, "I can walk by myself," as he shook himself loose and grabbed for the bannister.

JJ didn't argue, just followed him closely all the way to her room. The Stockman had four rooms, with an occupancy rate that was never going to keep the wolf from the door. An occasional long-haul trucker, an irregular trickle of government employees with their expense accounts, the odd backpacker looking for cheap lodgings on their way to somewhere-more-exciting.

It was hardly keeping her in diamond rings, but offering accommodation to travellers was a Stockman tradition and not one JJ was about to buck.

She inserted the key into the door that boasted a crooked number four and pushed it open, flicking on the light switch on the inside wall. Ethan shuffled past her and she watched as he headed straight for her couch, throwing himself down on it like it wasn't the most uncomfortable piece of furniture ever to be afforded the name.

The length of it couldn't properly accommodate his frame, so the denim-clad leg closest to the cushions stuck out over the end propped on the arm, the other hung off the edge, knee bent, foot flat against the seen-better-days carpet, spreading a lanky thigh. Her gaze followed the rigid line of that thigh, zeroing in on the slight bulge of his crotch cupped perfectly in denim, trying to ignore the pull of the blatantly male pose.

No woman would sleep like that, legs open in such a come-here-and-get-it way.

But Ethan Weston could sure as hell pull it off.

A burst of laughter from downstairs drifted up the stairwell and JJ shook herself. Ogling a sleeping man. A sleeping man who was in love with another woman.

A new low.

She crossed to the kitchenette, pouring two huge glasses of water and reaching in an overhead cupboard for two aspirin. As much as Ethan probably deserved the headache-from-hell in the morning for being such a blind fool, the part of her that had always been on Team Ethan couldn't quite bring herself to be that cruel.

She strode over to where he lay and nudged his thigh. "Ethan," she murmured.

He didn't budge and her resolve to be businesslike faltered as her hungry gaze fell on the planes and angles of his face. He'd thrown an arm up above his head, his face turned toward it, his sleeve ridden up. His nose pushed against the round bulge of an exposed bicep. His lips, slack and sexy in the throes of sleep, almost touched the firm flesh.

She'd kissed that mouth a handful of times. And remembered and relived each one in vivid detail during many a long night alone in her bed. Sometimes even when she had company. But Ethan never remembered them.

No, Ethan had to be practically legless to even contemplate kissing his good old buddy JJ. She doubted he even knew she was a girl until he donned his beer goggles.

"Ethan!" she hissed and gave his leg a good hard shove.

"Wha—?" He woke with a start, half raising himself up on his elbows as he peered at her like he was trying to ascertain what language she was speaking. When he realised it was English he smiled at her and fell back against the couch.

"JJ," he muttered. "Has anybody ever told you, you're a goddess?"

She rolled her eyes, ignoring the drunken compliment. "Drink," she said holding the glass in front of his face. "Two glasses. And," she held out her hand, "two tablets."

His eyes fluttered closed. "I'm fine," he murmured.

JJ gave him another sharp dig with her kneecap. "Drink."

Ethan grumbled as he hauled himself into a semi-upright position, supporting his weight on his elbow, but he took the proffered glass and drank it down, swallowing the tablets also.

"I'm good," he said as she pushed the second glass towards him.

JJ didn't blink as she stubbornly held the glass where it was. "How many times have I heard you lecturing the kids at the high school before they go off for schoolies week about hydrating properly after a big night on the booze? How 'bout practising what you preach?"

It was Ethan's turn to roll his eyes. "I should have known that was going to come back to bite me on the ass," he said as he reached for the glass and downed it in five long swallows. "Satisfied?" he griped as he pushed the empty glass against her belly.

JJ's stomach muscles contracted at the brief contact and she suppressed the urge to say _hell no, a little lower please._

"Thank you," she said as she took it from his fingers. Ethan fell back against the couch, shutting his eyes. "I have to get back to the pub. You going to be alright here?"

His eyes fluttered open and JJ found herself falling into the dark abyss, wishing she could be the oil on his troubled waters. Their gazes locked and for a moment she fancied that some of the angst in his eyes dissipated.

He reached for her hand lying loosely by her side and she let him take it. Let him toy with her fingers for a bit, run his thumb back and forth over her ring finger, bare now of the wedding band that had only sat there for one lousy year a full decade ago.

"Why didn't I fall for someone like you?" he asked, his gaze shifting from her hand to her face and the seriousness there trapped her breath in her lungs.

JJ shrugged with as much nonchalance as she could muster. "Not blonde enough?"

He laughed and it reached out and wrapped around her in a cloud of pheromones and possibility. She sucked in a breath, feeling momentarily disorientated, only to have Ethan compound it more by tugging on her hand, bringing her sprawling on top of him.

The softness of her chest hit the hardness of his and she let out a guttural oomph as the trapped air escaped. Their noses bumped together. Her hands landed on the arm of the couch bracketing his head, her knee jammed up close and personal to his crotch. _Her_ crotch balanced on the hard ridge of his thigh like she was riding the slippery log at a carnival.

"Ethan," she protested, trying to push herself up and away from the temptation of whisky and liquorice that was dazzling her senses.

But his hands clamped down on her ass causing a delicious friction, as the seam of her jeans taunted the aching flesh between her legs. She closed her eyes, fighting the urge to rub herself against him shamelessly.

"Sorry," he muttered, not looking one iota contrite. "I just love how you make me laugh," he said and while she was wrapping her head around the _L_ word he lifted his, smacking his mouth onto hers.

JJ felt the pull deep and low in a flash as her senses filled with overproof alcohol and oversexed Ethan. Even three sheets to the wind, Ethan kissed like no man she had ever known. Hard and hungry and sure and, for the briefest of moments, JJ allowed herself to lean into it, to savour his taste and the feel of his mouth and the rush of desire that tingled on her tongue.

And for two ticks she wished she were the kind of woman who could just throw caution to the wind. Who could conveniently forget that Ethan was under the influence—and his heart belonged to Delia—and just kiss him back.

Rock her parted thighs against his full hard one.

Reach down for his zipper.

Finally know what it felt like to have him sliding into her, hard and hot and ready.

But she wasn't.

And she'd survived several of his drunken come-ons in the past—she would survive this one too.

"No... stop," she muttered, dragging her mouth off his, pushing against him, scrambling to her feet, pulling in oxygen at a frantic pace, while her lungs screamed for more.

"Hey," he protested with another of his goofy grins. "I was enjoying that."

JJ felt the casual remark hit her like a barb to the chest. He was _enjoying_ himself. She was _declaring_ herself.

The difference was striking.

"I'm sure you'll live," she said dryly, her pulse still skipping madly inside her ribcage. "I have to get back to the patrons."

And she turned away instantly before her libido—getting antsier by the day during what was shaping up as the longest dry spell of her life—could talk her pride off the high ground.

Despite being determined to not look back she turned for one last look as she opened the door. He was already fast asleep.

Typical.

Ethan wasn't sure what the time was when he woke with his bladder feeling like it was about to pop, a throat as dry as the red centre and a mouth that tasted as furred and disgusting as the paper on the bottom of a birdcage. It took a moment or two to realise where he was as his eyes slowly adjusted to his surroundings.

JJ's room.

He groaned as he sat up in the dark. It was fair to say he didn't feel great. But he'd felt worse.

He blinked, thinking back through the haze of the day's events. He remembered saying goodbye to Connie in the afternoon as Delia and her brand new husband had whisked her away to Paris with them on their two-week honeymoon. He remembered opening the letter that he found on his desk when he went to check on something a couple of hours later. He remembered going to the pub. He remembered the overproof.

And he didn't remember anything after that.

He stood, staggering a little before he righted himself. He cracked his neck from side to side and stretched out his back. They both bitched at him about the stupidity of spending any length of time horizontal on JJ's torture-chamber couch.

He picked his way in the dark to JJ's bedroom doorway to use her ensuite. The bed was empty and he squinted at the red luminous face on her bedside clock. Eleven something the fuzzy numbers proclaimed, which probably explained why JJ wasn't around—the pub didn't shut until two on Friday and Saturday nights.

He used the toilet then searched through her vanity drawers for a toothbrush, finding a bulk packet within seconds. He scrubbed his teeth, and dipped his head to rinse, forming a cup with his hand close to the tap. When that was done he guzzled water, slaking his raging thirst as if the cool liquid was the elixir of life.

After he'd drunk most of Jumbuck Springs' town water supply dry Ethan stood, finally sated. _If only all his problems could be so easily fixed._ He stared at his reflection in the mirror as he wiped at the water that had spilled down his chin. His whiskers rasped like sandpaper in the still of the night.

He looked like hell. Which was pretty fitting, considering Delia had just unlocked the gate to the ninth circle and was gloating all the way to Paris. God, when had he gotten so damn haggard? He looked like he hadn't slept in a decade and he felt it. He was so damn tired. Tired of Delia and her shit. Tired of always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He turned away in disgust, striding out to the bedroom past the bed, heading back to a couch even less comfortable than the cot in the cell at the jail. It would certainly be perfectly at home in the reception area of Hell's ninth circle. But then he pulled himself up short and spun around to face the bed.

It looked like a marshmallow cloud compared to the monstrosity awaiting him, its plain, non-fussy coverlet positively luxurious, two big fat pillows beckoning like cherubs from the heavens.

Ethan dithered for a moment, cracking his neck from side to side again until the muscles of his traps protested reminding him of the cramped conditions awaiting him outside.

Screw it.

JJ wouldn't be back for hours and he'd just vacate when she got in. _Finder's keepers._

He shucked off his shoes, stripped off his socks and pulled his shirt over his head all in record time. He even undid the button at the top of his fly before stopping. Being in JJ's bed was one thing. Being almost naked in it another thing entirely.

Best keep his jeans on.

And that was the last coherent thought he could muster as he sank into the mattress. The bed squeaked under his weight, but Ethan didn't hear it as the mattress enveloped him in cloud-like comfort and he fell headlong into sleep.

## Chapter Two

JJ didn't go straight to her room after she switched off the lights in the bar and headed up the stairs. She walked past her door, seeking the quiet and fresh air of the pub's magnificent full-length veranda before she faced Ethan again.

She let herself out, the old floorboards creaking beneath her feet. Ignoring the nearby squatter's chairs, she walked the six metres to the edge, her hands coming to rest on the waist-high handrail.

The veranda, typical of so many outback pubs—wide and covered and hemmed in by magnificent railings of wrought-iron lacework—was her favourite place to sit and just be. Especially after a long busy night.

She inhaled slow and steady, shutting her eyes, the absolute serenity enveloping her. Nothing stirred on the street below, her last customers having left for home half an hour ago. In fact it was rare that anything _ever_ stirred at two-thirty in the morning in a town of two thousand people.

For this moment in time she was totally alone and she savoured it, knowing that a large, inebriated man waited for her in a hopelessly asexual way.

She opened her eyes, admiring the way the three-quarter moon bathed the wide main street in a milky film, softening the harshness of the black tar. Directly in front of the pub the strip of central parking was interrupted by the town cenotaph engraved with the names of the young men who had left Jumbuck Springs to fight for their country nearly a century ago. The moon, in an eerie celestial tribute, cast an alabaster sheen on it too.

A soft scrape below, across the other side of the street, caught her attention and the hair at her nape prickled as an eerie feeling of being watched assailed her. She automatically took a step away from the railing, back into the shadows cast by the overhanging, corrugated-iron roof. Her gaze flicked up and down the street spearing into dark corners as her pulse tripped a little.

She waited, her ears straining, her breath held.

Nothing.

Nothing moved. Nothing scraped. No-one was there.

Probably just an animal.

She let out her breath, forced her shoulders to relax. Still, she couldn't suppress a shiver that wasn't from the warm November night. Nor could she shake the eerie sensation, as she made her way inside and locked and bolted the door behind her.

JJ frowned at the empty couch as she let herself in to her room, the spooked feeling vanishing as crankiness took over. Where in the hell had he gotten to? He usually slept like the dead after a session with Jack.

If he'd walked himself home in his condition...

She pulled her mobile out of her back pocket as she headed for her bedroom, toeing her shoes off and leaving them where they fell as she hit Ethan's number on her speed dial list. A phone rang from the direction of her room and her frown deepened. _What the?_

She walked through the open doorway—the door had long ago met a nasty end—to find her missing person very much not missing, but sprawled, half-naked, like he was freaking King-of-the-World, on her bed.

This was every fantasy of hers come to life, and parts of her anatomy south of her navel did a little happy dance.

But parts north of her neck were pretty damn pissed off.

That was her bed, _goddamn it_. Yeah, it was a little on the old side, the springs creaked and one of the legs was a bit wonky, but it was big and comfy and just right after a long busy night on her feet. It was also the one little corner of her life Ethan hadn't managed to invade—not physically anyway.

God knew he'd visited plenty in the throes of many a wild wet dream.

But now it too would reek of eau-du-Ethan—liquorice and man. It would be ingrained in the fabric of the mattress, the stuffing of the pillows.

She was never going to sleep again.

JJ glared at his slumbering frame. Long legs, lethal in denim, his button fly already enticingly popped, abdomen all ridged and naked, begging for a finger or a tongue to discover the hills and valleys, dark shaggy hair spread around his head like a freaking halo on her pillow.

Well too damn bad for this broken-down angel. She was the one who'd worked her ass off until two am. Not him.

And she wanted her bed back.

If Ethan wanted to write himself off then _hit on her_ he could suffer the consequences. And in her home, the consequences were the couch.

She marched to the side and hissed, "Ethan!"

Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. Weren't cops supposed to sleep with one eye open?

Or was half a bottle of Jack paralysing to eyelids?

This time she snapped on the bedside lamp and jabbed him hard in the shoulder with her index finger. "Ethan!"

His eyes flew open and one more time tonight she was caught in the loss and pain she'd seen earlier before his thought processes came online and he realised where he was.

"Shit, sorry," he said as he bolted upright, his abs curling in a most distracting manner. He swung his legs over the side of the bed. "I got up to go to the bathroom. The bed was a little hard to resist after your god-awful couch. Seriously," he said pushing a hand through his unruly hair, "I'm buying you another one."

JJ's anger dissipated as quickly as it had risen. The man was sitting on her bed, shirtless and sleep rumpled, as if it was perfectly normal to be talking about hideous furniture at two-thirty in the morning.

"It's not meant to be slept on," she grouched.

"What's the bloody good of it then?" he grouched back.

JJ sighed. Ethan's head was level with her waist and the urge to step between his thighs, slide her fingers into his hair and draw his head to her belly, feel his arms snaking around her was about more than she could stand. With her big bed as the backdrop, she was on dangerous ground and her pulse beat, slow and thick, just thinking about the possibilities.

But maybe that was because she was sober.

And desperate.

Although Ethan seemed relatively sober now too. Sure, a blood alcohol level would probably dispute that but his voice was normal, his movements sure and coordinated.

"Maybe if you didn't let Delia push your buttons quite so much, you wouldn't have intimate knowledge of my awful couch?"

It was Ethan's turn to sigh. "You're right," he grimaced, raking his hands through his hair again. "But you're never going to guess what she's done now?"

JJ's pulse picked up at the utter desolation in his voice, and she finally understood what people meant when they talked about a sense of impending doom. Delia always had been an A-grade bitch. Who knew what evil she'd thought to visit upon them this time. She watched as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the piece of paper he'd been reading over and over at the bar earlier in the night.

He offered it to her with a, "I think you're probably going to need to sit for this."

JJ's chest tightened as she took the paper and sank to the mattress beside him. Her hand shook as she took in Delia's stupid, girly, loopy handwriting. Who still dotted their i's with a teeny circle and wrote with a purple glitter pen in their thirties for crying out loud?

Especially a letter that packed such a punch. Ultimately none of Delia's pretty could take away the ugly.

"She has got to be fucking kidding," JJ exclaimed, turning to face Ethan's steely profile. No wonder he'd sought some liquid solace.

"Nope," he said. Ethan propped his elbows on his evenly spaced knees, and dropped his face into his open palms. "Despite the glitter, I actually think she's deadly serious."

JJ suppressed the urge to tear up the offensive note into a billion pieces. She stood instead and paced up and down the length of the room. She stopped in front of him after a short while.

"She can't seriously expect that a court is going to give her full custody of a kid she walked out on when she was _two years old_ and, apart from a handful of _extremely_ disruptive flying visits, has had _bugger all_ to do with since?" JJ demanded.

Ethan shifted his hands so they were only half covering his face and looked at her. "She's the mother."

And the absolute defeat in his voice spiked something so violent inside JJ she wanted to smash things. "The mother? _The mother! Your_ mother..." JJ tripped over the words. It had been five years since Elizabeth Weston's death but it was still so hard to believe she wasn't ever going to be around again.

"... was more of a mother than Delia's ever been. Hell, Lacey, your little sister who was _eight years old_ when Connie was born, has been more of a mother. For fuck's sake, Delia's _own_ mother has had more to do with Connie!"

Ethan shook his head, dropping his hands to his knees. "What she says in the letter is right though, JJ. Connie's a fourteen-year-old girl now, who's going through puberty and... needs a woman's influence."

JJ snorted in a way she was damn sure Delia never would have. "A woman's influence maybe. A stupid, little, princess tramp's influence? No freaking way!"

Ethan blinked. "Wow. I had no idea you disliked her this much."

"What's to like?" JJ snapped. "Her leading you on a merry dance all through our senior year at high school? Or her deliberately getting pregnant to screw up your career prospects and bring you back here? Or maybe her fooling around behind your back with at least two men that we know of? Or how about the pièce de résistance? Her leaving town with that wanna-be country music fool the day her kid turned two?"

Ethan stared morosely at the threadbare carpet. "For what it's worth, I think this thing with Edward has really matured her. He's a good guy."

JJ couldn't believe he was defending her. Edward may be a good guy but he was also a blind fool. She took up pacing again, stalking to one end of the room then pivoting abruptly once she got close to the wall and marching back again. She stopped after four laps. "Has Delia even asked Connie what she wants?"

"I suspect that's what Paris is about."

JJ snorted again, her bare feet chewing up the carpet. "You and I and _everyone_ in this town, _including_ Delia's parents, know damn well there is _no way in hell_ your daughter will want to live anywhere that you're not. She worships the ground you walk on."

"Yeah... but I've never taken her to Paris, have I?"

JJ blew a raspberry this time. The fact that all-about-me Delia had taken her daughter on her honeymoon had shocked the hell out of everyone. But clearly she'd had an ulterior motive all along. "Paris smaris."

Ethan shook his head. "Connie was pretty impressed."

JJ stopped in front of Ethan again. "That's because Connie is a bright girl who isn't stupid enough to turn her back on the trip of a lifetime from a woman who has _never_ given her _anything._ She's smart. That's how you raised her. But Paris with her mother and new husband for two weeks is a lot different to Princess _freaking_ Delia forever."

Ethan dropped his head again, his hands coming up to worry the shaggy layers of his hair. "I can't..." his voice cracked and he stopped for a moment, "... lose her, JJ. I just can't."

JJ blinked at the emotion in Ethan's voice. She'd known him all of his life and never— _never_ —heard him break. Even as his mother's life drew to an end and the days after and during the funeral he'd been stoic as hell—like a rock. Going through the motions, doing what had to be done, being there for a devastated Connie and Lacey.

He looked up at her and the anguish thickening his gaze lanced right through her middle, clawing a handful of her gut and yanking hard.

JJ threw herself down on the bed beside him. "You won't," she said, her hand skating up his back to rest on his shoulder. "We're not going to let that happen."

He didn't look at her, just stared straight ahead at the wall. "I just don't know what I'd do if she wasn't there, every day. I just can't..."

He trailed off and the anger in JJ's gut burned a little brighter. Delia had better not ever set foot in The Stockman again if she didn't want to be looking down the barrel of a shotgun.

Purely out of instinct she slid her hand across acres of warm skin from his shoulder to his neck, her thumb brushing against his nape in reassurance. She turned slightly so she could see him properly, her knees pressed against his thigh and she dropped a kiss to his bare shoulder.

"Don't think like that," she murmured, her chin propped on his shoulder. "We'll fight this. It'll work out, you'll see."

"How do you know that?" he demanded, turning to face her, a flare of light flickering in his gaze like the strike of a match. "Courts have been known to do crazier things."

JJ couldn't bear it. She couldn't bear to see Ethan—good, decent, honourable Ethan who gave up his dreams of making detective in homicide to come back to Jumbuck Springs and marry his pregnant girlfriend—being put through this.

She was so used to him being the strong arm of the law it was something else to see him so... vulnerable. And even if JJ hadn't loved him since she was six years old and he'd punched Timmy Walker in the nose for calling her a girl, earning the ire of his chief of police father, she'd have still hated what Delia was doing to him.

She grabbed his face, cradling his cheekbones, his whiskers prickling her palms. "Listen to me. I know it because I know _you_ ," she whispered, her voice fierce with conviction. "And I know Connie and how much she adores you. And I know this town. There isn't one person in this town who won't vouch for you. Not one."

"I don't know," Ethan said, shutting his eyes. "Delia's circumstances have changed... Edward comes from some serious money..."

"Shh," JJ said, refusing to let even a nanosecond of doubt push its way between them. She had to make him see, she had to make it better. She stroked the pads of her thumbs over his shut eyelids. "You're the good guy, right? And the good guy always wins." _Over the evil bitch princess_. "It's the rules."

Ethan gave a soft snort, his eyes flicking open, his gaze bleeding like a cut vein. "No, JJ, they don't."

"Yes, they do," she murmured, leaning in to kiss first one eyelid then the other, then his cheek and the dimple in his chin. Comforting him with the only thing she had right now—her words and her touch, like she'd do for anything or anyone who was suffering.

"They do here, in Jumbuck Springs," she said, her fingers stroking the side of his face as her gaze locked with his. "Cos you're _our_ guy. And this town would slay a dragon for you."

Hell she'd slay one all on her own if she had to.

"And if it just happens to be blonde and perky then I say bring it on, bitch."

One corner of Ethan's mouth kicked up slightly and she ran her thumb over it as her forefinger traced the indent in his chin, his whiskers spiking at her skin. She smiled back. "There you go," she murmured. "There's that trademark dimple."

"Hmph," he murmured as his smile broadened. "You got my back huh?"

"Always," she grinned.

His smile didn't last long. "Thanks," he said leaning in to give her a peck on the cheek. "It's good to have you in my corner."

JJ rolled her eyes as she dropped her hands to her lap. "Don't be _stoopid,_ dummy. The whole town is in your corner."

His smile rewarded her and for a moment they just sat side by side smiling at each other. And then something changed, JJ wasn't sure what. But the smile slowly left his mouth and the atmosphere went from companionable to something thicker, weightier as she realised how close they'd become. How their foreheads were practically touching, their hair rubbing together. The faint smell of liquorice and overproof whisky floated around her and stroked her skin, prickling it as surely as his whiskers had only moments before.

"I should get back to the couch," he grimaced.

JJ knew it was her cue to agree. To say something flippant and then kick him the hell out of her room. But damned if she wanted to do that. Damned if she didn't want him now more than ever. And while he may not have been sober as a judge, he was a long way from inebriated.

So she didn't kick him to the curb—she kissed him.

As far as kisses went, it wasn't going to end any Hollywood movies. Just the press of her mouth against his, holding still, settling into the moment, testing it out, ready to pull back, to flee should rejection be swift and decisive.

But there was no rejection.

JJ pulled back slightly, her throat thick, her pulse rushing through her ears like freaking Niagara Falls. Her lungs dragged in air she could practically taste, tinted with the essence of him that had been encoded in her DNA from childhood.

But the adult spice of whisky on his breath was a tantalising reminder that they weren't children anymore. JJ had grown up in a pub. She came home most nights reeking of rum and spilled beer—probably did right at this moment. And there was something wonderfully familiar about it—like home.

Probably something really screwed up about it as well.

Ethan smelled like overproof whisky. But mostly he smelled like home.

The night seemed to be holding its breath around them and she couldn't bear the silence any longer. "Ethan—"

She got no further, his mouth cutting her off, and whatever she'd been about to say was swept away, along with her common sense and years of keeping her distance.

Ethan groaned as JJ's mouth opened beneath his, a thousand conflicting thoughts quashed by the enticing wash of desire. It grabbed at his loins and streaked heat up the inside of his thighs. She tasted good and smelled even better, and it didn't matter that there was a line somewhere that he'd just crossed; only her mouth mattered.

Only the suck of her breath and the play of her tongue and the glide of her palms as they made their way to his shoulders. Only the slow obliteration of his troubles, of the here and now.

No Connie, no Delia, no custody battle.

Taken away from it all for a while.

Just him and her. Male and female. Hard and soft.

Her tongue stroked deep into his mouth and he groaned, welcoming it like a starving man. Like a man who hadn't had sex in well over two years. Like a man deprived of love and affection.

His hands pushed into her short wavy hair, his mouth demanding more access to hers, taking and rejoicing when she gave it to him, bending her head back, trying to get enough, trying to go to that place where only pleasure existed.

His heart pounded, his breath came in ragged gasps, his hands shook, his groin burned, his erection surged.

Yes. This. He needed this.

The sweet oblivion of a woman's body. Her softness, her sighs, her touch, her taste. Her deep wet heat.

Their kisses intensified, heads twisting back and forth as they tried to go deeper, get closer, then they were falling back onto the mattress and Ethan revelled in the crush of her breasts against his bare chest.

He ripped his mouth away, the noise of their breathing sawing in and out loud between them. JJ's face was flushed, her usually clear-eyed stare distinctly glazed, her mouth moist and swollen. A surge of possession spiralled directly to his groin.

"Ethan," she muttered, her hands reaching for him, but he hung back, grabbing a fistful of her T-shirt and pulling it up. Up and off, over her head, tossing it behind her. He barely glanced at the black bra in his haste to get to the goods below, yanking a cup aside and feasting on a rosy nipple.

It instantly puckered against his tongue and she cried out, ploughing her fingers into his hair, arching her back, and he sucked harder, running his tongue across the engorged tip, his hand reaching for her other breast, freeing it from its cup, his fingers mimicking the actions of his tongue.

He switched sides and her soft whimper, her breathy little gasp of, "Yes," roared in his head like a cheer squad.

Like a symphony.

It wiped out everything but the taste and the smell and the sound of her. It hardened his dick, clawed red-hot talons into his buttocks and clamped his balls in a vice. He needed to be in her. He needed to feel the lock of her ankles around his waist and the clamp of her internal muscles as he pounded into her.

His hand travelled south as his mouth returned to claim hers and it made him hotter, harder, when she lifted her head off the bed as eager for his mouth as he was for her, her lips greedy on his as she whimpered her approval. His fingers found her fly, popping the button and easing the zipper down, slipping inside her underwear, heading straight for the heart of her.

She bucked against his hand and moaned into his mouth and Ethan kissed it up, sucking it away, revelling in her abandon, his tongue thrusting hard into her mouth, matching the shove and lunge of hers.

His fingers skated over the swollen nub, wet and hard, pausing to circle it a few times. Her hands clawed at his back, pushed under his waistband and slid inside his briefs. They grasped at his buttocks and stars exploded behind his eyelids, urging him on.

His fingers sought and found her entrance, slipping inside, first one then the other. She cried out, lifted her hips off the bed.

There. He wanted to be there. Sunk in deep. Snug to the hilt. Feeling her tight and hot and wet. Feeling her clamped down hard around him just like this.

"I want to be in you," he groaned against her mouth.

"Yes," she panted, "Yes," pushing at his jeans, his underwear, pushing them off his hips, exposing his ass. He stopped, rolled off her onto his back, shifting and wriggling and kicking out of his clothes as his heart pounded and his breath roared in his head, vaguely aware she was doing the same, losing her bra, her jeans, her underwear. _Yes, yes, yes_ chanted like a mantra through his blood.

And then she was skating up the bed, clawing at the coverlet, pulling it back, holding her hand out to him and dragging him towards her. Sweet, sweet JJ offering him the solace, the oblivion he so desperately needed. Looking fine, smelling good—like beer and bar and home.

"Now," she said in his ear as he covered her body with his, her knees drawn up, her hips cradling his, his erection nudging the slick heat at her centre. "Now."

And when she kissed him hard and deep and desperate he didn't have it in him not to take what she was offering, what her eyes implored him for and her mouth begged, "Please, please, please," for. He just followed the dictates of their bodies and pushed into her on a deep guttural groan.

And when her head fell back on a swift gasp of ecstasy his mouth latched onto her neck, kissing and sucking, licking and gnawing, her slight breasts bouncing, her ankles locking around his waist, his hips finding a rhythm that stoked him ever higher.

Ethan lost himself inside her as the primal demands of his libido drowned out finesse, erased reasoning. The bed squeaked, but he barely heard it. All that existed was the blinding imperative to not think, to leave it all behind. To have it all fade to black in the throes of a truly good orgasm. To thrust and rock and pound until he came long and hard. To reach the pinnacle as fast as he could, to leap off the edge and truly leave all his earth-bound worries behind.

He was a cave man. He was a Neanderthal.

He was fucking Cro-Magnon.

And all the time JJ panted, "Yes, yes, yes," stoking him higher, building him quicker, squeezing his ass, whimpering her pleasure.

And suddenly it was there, boiling up from the root of his cock, pulling everything tight, waves of ecstasy rippling in ever bigger circles from his groin spreading to his thighs, his butt, his belly. Trembling through his arms as they took his weight above her. Finding voice in the bellow that tore from his throat, as his head reared up, and resonated in the air around them.

He didn't know how long he rocked into her. He just rode the wave until long after it had peaked and crashed all around him. He rode until he was spent. Until his arms gave out. Until his voice cracked.

Then JJ was easing away from him, rolling him gently to his back, pulling up the sheets, moving in close, her head snuggling into his shoulder, her arm over his chest, her fingers lightly caressing a still quivering bicep.

His eyes fluttered closed, his lids so heavy it seemed impossible to keep them open. _He was so damned tired_. But something nagged at him, something important. Post-coital malaise invaded, infecting every cell in his body, tugging him insistently towards sleep, but he prised his eyes open as he grasped what was wrong.

In his haste to get to the goal line he hadn't thought about her needs at all. Had she even...

"You didn't—"

"Shh," she murmured, interrupting his thoughts, her lips brushing his ear and her fingers stroking up and down the entire length of his arm now. "It's fine... I'm fine... tired," she said. "Go to sleep."

Ethan tried to fight it, his brain a fog as he lost the battle with his conscience, his eyelids drooping, the elusive strands of his objections fluttering away like the tail of a kite as the heavy drag of sleep beckoned.

## Chapter Three

Harsh sunlight poked into Ethan's eyeballs a few hours later, as consciousness slowly returned. And for a few moments everything felt good. He felt limber and loose. _Energised_.

And then something lean and warm shifted against him and he cracked an eyelid open and found himself looking down on a head of wavy brown hair.

Very familiar wavy brown hair.

His pulse accelerated as if he'd already guzzled his first coffee for the day. "Holy shit," he swore, sitting bolt upright, displacing JJ in his panic, taking a peek under the sheet covering his lap only to be confronted with his nudity. His very limp, spent, satisfied looking nudity.

He looked back at a stirring JJ, the sheet barely covering her clearly naked breasts. He dropped his head into his palms as the memories of what had happened in this bed a scant few hours ago crashed in on top of him.

" _Fuck,_ " he whispered.

He leapt up, grabbing for his jeans, conscious of JJ's eyelids fluttering open. He kept his back to her as he pulled them on sans underwear, zipping the zip, leaving the button undone. He could hear the bed squeaking behind him but he had to wait a beat or two before he was composed enough to turn around and face her.

She was sitting with her back propped against the bedhead, the sheets tucked firmly around her, a wary expression on her face. "Jesus," he said, running his hand through his hair. "What have we done?"

She held up her hands in a placating manner. "I think it's important that we don't freak out," she said.

_Don't. Freak. Out_? Was she kidding? He'd just slept with a woman he'd been best buddies with his entire life. _With Jemima Jane Ericson for fuck's sake._ And now he knew stuff about her he'd never known before. Intimate stuff.

Naked stuff.

Like how she kissed. How she whimpered in the back of her throat. How great her nipples tasted. His gaze dropped involuntarily to where the sheet ruched around her breasts.

Oh God, _doofus_ , do not think about her nipples. Or her breasts for that matter.

Or how hot and tight she was.

How damn good she'd felt.

Not now. Not when he needed JJ— _his friend_ —more than ever.

He cleared his throat, his gaze falling to her breasts again before he pulled it away. "Why did you let me do that?"

She blinked and he hated himself for the affront he saw on her face. "I beg your pardon?"

"Well clearly I'd had a lot to drink and was not in any fit state to be making important sexual decisions."

She snorted, a little puff of air blowing her fringe off her forehead. "Are you accusing me of taking advantage of you?"

Ethan glared at her. She looked exactly like the JJ he'd always known. The knobbly kneed kid who lived down the street and could climb a tree, jump from a rope swing into a waterhole, and throw a cricket ball as good as any boy on the block.

Except, she wasn't.

Her shoulders were bare, her hair was all sleep tousled and her mouth, always a little on the wide side, looked thoroughly kissed. And then there was her distinct lack of clothing. "I'm saying you should have stopped me."

She crossed her arms and glared right back at him, her hazel eyes stormy. "Why?"

_Why?_ She had to ask him that? Because she was... JJ. They'd known each other practically since birth. Their relationship was one of the few in his life he actually gave a rat's ass about. And now they'd gone and blown it.

Sex always complicated things.

Connie was living proof.

Ethan shoved his hands on his hips trying to gather good argumentative data in a brain that had obviously taken leave of its senses. Which he probably would have managed had her gaze not zeroed in on his belly and lit a trail of fire in its wake as it trekked from one hip to the other.

He swallowed as the whole world shifted under his feet. "I was a... mess last night JJ," he said scrabbling for plausible reasons for his behaviour. "That bloody letter... I wasn't in any fit state..." Although God knew he'd been hard as a freaking rock from the first touch of her mouth. "I was drunk—"

She shook her head at him vehemently, interrupting his flow. "No. You weren't," she said emphatically. "Earlier in the night, yes. But not... later."

Ethan let go of the excuses for his behaviour as the truth came and bit him hard on the ass. He might not have been one hundred per cent sober, and some earlier events of the night were pretty much non-existent, but he sure as shit remembered every bit of their horizontal action.

But that didn't make it okay.

He opened himself up further to truth. The awful, harsh truth he'd been hiding from since he sprang from the bed minutes ago. "I was just _using_ you," he bit out. "Don't you _get_ it?"

Another typically inelegant snort escaped her mouth. A mouth he _could not stop looking at_. "You think I don't _know_ that?" she railed. "What makes you think I didn't _use_ you? I'm thirty-five years old, Ethan, and not averse to some recreational sex every now and then. I have needs too you know."

Ethan gaped at her. No. He didn't know. And he'd gotten through thirty-five years of his life _just fine_ without knowing. Frankly this whole line of conversation was driving him nuts. How could he not think about what they'd done when JJ was sitting there bold as freaking brass— _in a sheet_ —telling him she'd used him right back.

That she had _needs_.

He just couldn't wrap his head around it. Despite all evidence to the contrary—her marriage to that evil prick Shane, the casual arrangements over the years with the odd passing truck driver or transient backpacker—JJ had always been kind of asexual to him. The fact that she was forcing him to confront her sexuality—now of all times with the wild aroma of their joining lingering on his skin like soap residue—made him inexplicably pissed off.

"Well maybe you should have more self-respect?"

JJ gasped and he hated himself a little more. "Oh, I see," she said scathingly. "It's okay for you to _use_ me but not okay for me to _allow_ it? To _enjoy_ it?"

He'd never noticed how symmetrical her features were before. How her big mouth balanced out her square face. How it was a good counterpoint for her wide cheekbones and her broad forehead. But with her whole face frowning at him like he was responsible for inventing menstruation, it seemed particularly obvious.

But suddenly an even bigger issue than her wounded feminine pride hit him square between the eyes.

Christ... enjoyed it?

_She hadn't even come_. He'd just taken what he wanted then rolled off her like some drunken slob and gone to sleep. Loathing rose in his throat and scalded like stomach acid.

"For God's sake," he snapped, "You didn't even..." _Dear God, he couldn't even bring himself to say it._ "I mean _I_ didn't even make you..."

Nope. It was no use. He couldn't say the words. God knew they trash talked and told each other dirty jokes all the time, but he couldn't talk about such intimate stuff with her when it actually meant something.

But he needn't have worried. JJ was drawing herself up against the bedhead, a familiar feminist glow burning in her eyes. "You think I need an _orgasm_ to enjoy sex?" she demanded. "What are you, like fifteen?" She eyed him in disgust. "I can get my own orgasms just fine. Last night was not about me getting off. It was about comfort and solace. About helping you to forget for a while."

Ethan blinked as the full magnitude of her words pelted him like shrapnel. " _Oh my God_. It was a _pity_ fuck?"

JJ shrugged and his gaze was drawn to the angular lines of her collar bones and the hollow at the base of her throat. And lower...

"If you insist on labelling it."

Ethan gaped, her flippant remark halting the downward trajectory of his gaze. _Bloody hell_. He was speechless. Utterly speechless. This could _not_ be happening. His best friend of _thirty_ years, who he hadn't even seen in a _bikini_ before today, had slept with him because she felt _sorry_ for him.

It was official—his life had gone down the shitter.

And then, rather belatedly, another thought hit him square between the eyes. "Oh _Jesus._ We didn't even use a condom."

Ethan stared at JJ askance. What the fuck had he been thinking last night?

Clearly, he hadn't been.

Clearly, he'd lost his mind.

Protection had been so far from his head he might as well have been in an alternate universe where unwanted babies and sexually transmitted diseases had never been heard of.

Dumb horny guy universe.

JJ scowled at him. "It's fine, Ethan. I just finished my period. And as you seem to have about as much sex as I do, I assume disease isn't an issue." She folded her arms. "Take a frickin' breath."

Ethan couldn't believe how composed she was. Of course, that _was_ JJ's MO. Cool, calm and collected. Unflappable in the face of most situations. Running a pub required a level head, a firm hand and a nose for bullshit.

Pretty much like being a cop.

But this situation was totally outside his experience. He's screwed up with women before. Hell, he'd screwed up with Delia big time. But this...

He found his gaze wandering again as she stared back at him like she wasn't naked beneath those sheets. Her long lanky frame, which he'd always admired for its athleticism—she'd run cross country for the state, had set the girls' long jump record at high school and could ride a horse like she was born to it—seemed suddenly... feminine.

"Do you think you could... get some clothes on or something," he said, with a sweeping gesture towards her general nakedness. "It's really hard to have a serious conversation with you in nothing but a sheet."

She raised an eyebrow. "Shall I just peel it back and do it now? Or perhaps you'd like to leave so I can have a little privacy?"

A dull flush lit his cheeks as he thought about her emerging from those sheets. He hadn't really seen an awful lot of her body last night—although he doubted he'd ever be able to erase the image, _or the taste,_ of her rosy nipples. He'd been too intent on being inside her to worry about the outside.

His blush intensified at his crass ineptitude. He _felt_ freaking fifteen years old again.

"Of course... sorry," he said. Her legs shifted beneath the sheet and he tried not to think about how firm they'd felt locked around his waist.

JJ's folded her arms across her chest. "Well?"

"Right," he said, dragging his mind out of those sheets and his head out of his ass. "See you outside," he said stiffly, and rather unnecessarily, before his legs actually circumvented his brain and moved him the hell out of the room.

JJ, still clutching the sheet, watched the play of muscles across his bare back as he practically ran out of the room. They bunched and shifted beneath honey-golden skin, which would have been exceedingly distracting if it weren't for two full sets of fingernail marks decorating the slabs of muscle either side of his spine.

She swallowed at her handiwork, looking down at her paltry nails. They were short and neat—hardly noteworthy. Long fingernails weren't very practical for pub work. And seriously... who could be bothered?

She knew the answer before the question even formed fully in her mind. _Delia._ Delia sported a full set of flashy nails every time she swept in and out of town. Long and painted, sometimes decorated with fancy little stickers. For the wedding, according to an excited Connie, she'd had tiny diamantés artfully placed.

JJ had just stopped saying, yeah well... no matter how much sparkle you stuck on a talon, it was still a freaking talon.

It wasn't Connie's fault her mother was a manipulative cow.

JJ dropped her forehead into her palms. For fuck's sake, what the hell was she doing thinking about inane crap like this?

Delaying the inevitable?

She had to get up. She had to get dressed. She had to go outside and go back to living the lie. Tell Ethan she was _fine_ , that it was _no big deal_ , that _nothing_ had to change.

That their relationship wasn't in jeopardy. They were still friends. That it would be okay.

That it would never happen again.

Because clearly, based on the horror on his face when he'd leapt out of bed, repeating the experience was not on the table. Hell, she was pretty sure he'd have chewed off his own arm had he not been able to get away from her easily.

They'd been good together, she knew that—she wasn't some inexperienced, insecure twenty-year-old who would torture herself about the meaning of his swift morning-after rejection. But she also knew that nowhere inside Ethan Weston's brain had she ever been part of his life equation.

Not in that way.

And the man had enough to worry about now without adding her _feelings_ into the mix. Or her horniness from her not-quite-fulfilled session between the sheets. Even now, as she thrust her feet into her jeans, she felt the pulse between her legs. The throb that he started when he'd first touched her there, lingering still.

She hadn't lied to him. Penetration alone was satisfying on such a primitive level—and that's what last night had been. Primitive. But it had been a long time since a man had touched her. A long time since she'd even taken care of business herself. And having sex with the man she'd been having wet dreams about since she was thirteen was a painful reminder.

But right now—she had to go stop Ethan from freaking out.

By pretending she wasn't freaked out at all!

JJ could smell coffee as soon as she entered the main living area and was thankful for small mercies. She'd take any crutch she could get to help her through this conversation. Even if it was being given to her by a half-naked man sporting her fingernails marks all down his back.

He was standing at the sink staring out the window, which overlooked the back of the roofs of the other businesses that lined the main street. He turned as she approached and passed her a mug. JJ took it and sipped immediately—strong and milky with two sugars, unlike the black sludge he drank.

Caffeine buzzed on her tongue and shot into her system, kicking up her heartbeat and tingling like sherbet between her legs. Or that could just be the semi-naked spectacle of him lounging against her sink, his feet bare, that damn button on his fly still undone. Lounging like he belonged here in the hotel room she called home.

JJ took another sip, feeling his wary gaze weighing her down. She looked up. Ethan didn't bother to pretend he wasn't watching her and she didn't bother to pretend she wasn't aware. She met his gaze head on, refusing to be ashamed by what they'd done or cowed by his consternation.

They were thirty-five years old for crying out loud. Not a couple of reckless teenagers. And what was done, was done. That's what her mother would say.

She took a steadying breath. "It's going to be fine, Ethan. I think the best thing we can do is just put this thing behind us and move on."

Ethan looked like he was about to splutter his mouthful of coffee everywhere. "This _thing_?"

He put his mug down and crossed his arms, which only served to draw her gaze to the chest she'd been trying really hard _not_ to look at.

"Sex," he spluttered. " _This thing_ , is sex. It's not some little white lie, some minor transgression. It's sex. Between you and me. _Sex_. That's a _big_ thing."

JJ raised an eyebrow. She was trying really hard to practise what she preached and forget about the _s_ thing and move on, but him saying it over and over like a toddler discovering a new word was not helping.

All she was thinking about now was sex.

"Is this the lecture you give to the high school kids you catch down at Hobson's Crossing? Because I really don't appreciate being treated like some kid you caught with her pants down."

She gripped the handle of her mug hard, trying not to think how easily her pants had come down.

"I know what happened between us, Ethan. But short of one of us leaving town, we're just going to have deal with this. The way I see it, we can talk about this ad nauseam or we can avoid each other forever. Both really not practical choices. So I suggest we do what every other adult couple does in our situation—accept that it happened and get on with it. Or pretend it never happened and get on with it. Either way, we really just need to get on with it."

He looked at her like she'd lost her mind. "But I know stuff about you—stuff I can't pretend I don't know. For God's sake, I'm standing here trying to have a serious conversation with you and all I can see is that you're not wearing a bra." He pushed a hand through his hair and scowled at her. "I never notice that sort of stuff about you—never."

JJ didn't know whether to be insulted or grateful. This was the downside of having a guy friend—they didn't pretty things up to spare your feelings. "Yeah well," she said sticking a hand on her hip belligerently as her nipples decided to really put on a show, "you're not looking close enough. Apart from work, I hardly ever wear a bra."

Why bother with her breasts? With a good push-up she looked like she had some to spare but otherwise her A cups were never going to win her a wet T-shirt contest. Sure they sat nicely, the nipples perfectly centred, but they'd have done that without the support of a bra. The only reason she even wore one to work was to stop drunks thinking it was some kind of come-on.

"Of course I'm not," he said, his voice reaching exasperation point as his gaze took in the hard centre points of her nipples tenting her T-shirt then quickly skittered away again. "That's the bloody point!"

JJ regarded him for a moment. What did he want from her? Did he want what happened between them last night to be just magicked away? Because even if she had that in her power, she wouldn't have done it. _She_ was going to savour last night for a very long time.

She wasn't sorry it had happened.

She took a calming breath. "Okay then," she said, "what do _you_ want, Ethan? How do you want to handle it?"

## Chapter Four

Ethan looked at JJ for long moments, then turned away to stare out the window again, one palm flat on the bench beside the sink, the other curled around the stainless steel edge. He didn't say anything for the longest time, but JJ was used to Ethan's way of mulling things over thoroughly in his mind before putting a plan into action.

It was one of the things she loved about him.

But staring at her scratch marks on his back, at the evidence of their passion, was not doing anything to stop her thinking about _the big thing_.

He turned back, his ass resting against the sink again. His eyes were so bleak she wished for a mad moment she did have a magic wand.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "All I know is I'm going to need you these next few months if Delia really does come home from Paris throwing her weight around."

JJ knew for sure that Ethan Weston would get through this just fine without her, the same way he got through everything else—with dignity and honour. But it was like music to her ears to hear it. "You have Jarrod and Marcus," she said, her practical side taking over. "And you can bet Lacey's going to pitch a fit, for sure. Connie's also not going to take it lying down."

"Yeah, but you're the one who's going to keep me sane through it all."

JJ cradled her mug. "And I still will."

He shook his head. "It's going to be awkward."

"Yeah. It will. But we'll get past it." She smiled at him. "I don't know about you, but I've forgotten about it already."

"JJ."

"Really." She frowned and dropped her head to one side, looking at him through narrowed eyes. "Who are you and what are you doing in my kitchen?" _Practically naked._

"JJ."

"I think you should go before I call the cops. The chief and I go way back. He a real hard-ass. Takes the virtue of the women of Jumbuck Springs _very_ seriously."

Ethan gave her a ghost of a smile as his shoulders drooped a little. "You think we can do this?"

JJ nodded, determined to drag him the rest of the way now he was looking more convinced. She marched forward all business like—time to get him on his way. Get him moving.

Give him no time for second thoughts.

She pushed him aside with her hip as she reached the sink, emptying her coffee mug down the drain. "You better get going," she said as she turned the tap on.

Heat radiated from his body, boiling the molecules in her blood, exciting them _and her_ into a state of sexual agitation. If he didn't move out of her orbit soon she was just going to kiss him again and that'd really screw things up.

He turned his head and he was so close, just a hair's breadth between his arm and hers, and JJ had never been more tempted to throw caution to the wind.

Fortunately his next words were like a bucket of ice-cold water.

"I think you're right," he said, slowly as if he was still considering his words. "I think it _is_ possible to move on and pretend it never happened. But only if it never happens again." His gaze bored into hers with an intensity that stole her breath. "We need to keep that line firmly in its place. I think it's the _only_ way we're going to get past this."

JJ nodded. She knew that. She knew she was destined to pretend forever that Ethan hadn't spent the night in her bed. Pretend he hadn't sucked and licked and kissed her in places she'd only ever dreamed about. Pretend he hadn't pounded into her with all the desperation of a man clinging to a life raft. Pretend he hadn't brought a life-long fantasy to reality.

But nothing was going to stop her from cherishing that memory forever. He may have come around to her way of thinking, may be on board with the forgetting-it-ever-happened strategy, but he couldn't take the memory from her. No-one could. And she would hug it to her forever.

"I know that," she said, swallowing hard against a future where things would never be the same. A relationship that would probably always be a little bit different now. Strained for a while. Strange for a lot longer.

For a mad second she wanted to fling her arms around him and give him an alternative future where they didn't have to pretend. Where they _could_ be together.

Thankfully a knock at her door stopped her from doing something really foolish.

Ethan frowned, pushing off the sink, his shoulders tense again as his muscles went into cop mode. "Who the hell is that at seven on Sunday morning?"

JJ didn't know and she didn't care. She was just damned grateful they'd chosen that moment to save her from herself. "There are two rooms in use, someone probably ran out of soap," she said briskly as she dried her hands on her jeans. "You go and get dressed and I'll find out."

For a moment it looked like he was going to argue but he seemed to think better of it and JJ breathed a little easier as he headed for her room. She was more likely to remember the whole _moving on_ thing with him fully clothed.

The knock came again and JJ walked towards it, her thoughts whirling around in her head like a giant willy-willy. She was so relieved and grateful for the normalcy of a visitor, it actually took her a moment when she opened the door to compute his identity.

And then she realised there _were_ worse things than sleeping with Ethan Weston.

"What do you want?" she asked, her jaw setting rigid, her heart beating for all the wrong reasons now, as her ex-husband lounged against the door frame, one of his _hey-baby_ smiles plastered on his face.

He'd aged in the decade or so since she'd last seen him. And not for the better. Not like Ethan had. He was still a physically imposing man, tall and broad, but his belly had a layer of fat, his face was rounder, grey shot his scraggly-ass beard.

Was it just the years or had his forehead always looked so pronounced?

She'd been so desperate for a distraction after Ethan had married Delia she'd grabbed the first available guy who'd made a play for her. Looking at Shane now she acknowledged it hadn't been one of her smartest moves.

He pushed off the doorframe and JJ gripped the door handle harder, refusing to be intimidated as he loomed a little closer. "Hi, JJ. Long time no see."

"Not long enough," she said stiffly and pushed the door to close it in his face.

A meaty hand stopped its trajectory. "Please, JJ. I just want to talk. To say sorry for..."

"What?" she demanded. "For breaking my cheekbone? Fracturing my eye socket? And three of my ribs?"

JJ had fought long and hard to gain back the confidence that Shane had slowly stripped away from her in their year-long marriage. To grow strong again. To get back that toughness she'd always been known for. But listing her injuries took her back to a dark place and she once again felt vulnerable as only another woman could understand when faced with a large imposing male.

"I'm sorry about that, JJ. You know that. I told you a hundred times already."

He could have told her a million and she'd still want him gone. She wished she was in the bar right now, on her home turf, with her shotgun within easy reach. But she was in her room, upstairs, on a sleepy Sunday morning.

Vulnerable if he decided to lunge.

Though thankfully, as Ethan's voice drifted out from her room, not alone.

"Who is it?"

JJ didn't take her eyes of her ex for a second. She saw the flicker of surprise in his gaze and something else. Something darker. Something ugly. "It's Shane."

Ethan yanked his shirt over his head and stalked out of the room, striding over to the doorway on a surge of adrenaline laced with boiling, hot fury. _It had better bloody not be_.

But there he was, bold as freaking brass.

"You have got to be _fucking_ kidding me," he growled as he reached JJ. He slung an arm over her shoulder, dragging her against him, pinning her back to his chest, his bent arm caging her close. Her hands came up to rest on his forearm. He could feel them trembling slightly and his other fist clenched.

Shane took a step back, his hands out in front of him in a placating gesture. "I don't want any trouble here, Ethan," he said.

"Well then turn your ass around and don't come back. You're not welcome in this town."

"I just came to tell JJ that I've got a job on a shearing team that's going to be around these parts for the next couple of months. I thought I owed her that courtesy. Don't want to surprise her if she sees me around town or if I stop in for a beer."

"No," Ethan said keeping his voice low and dangerous, just like they'd taught him in the academy all those years ago. "You step foot in this pub again, I'll arrest you."

Shane bristled. "For what?"

Ethan's jaw worked. He could feel the crash of JJ's heart against his own ribs. "Disturbing my peace."

Shane folded his arms. "You can't arrest me for having a cold drink after a long hot day," he said.

"You wanna bet? Or do you want to drink at Joe's instead?"

For a moment Shane looked like he was going to argue, but he backed down in the face of Ethan's grim countenance. Ethan knew that bullies only ever truly understood greater strength and, while Shane was big and broad, Ethan was bigger and broader.

And he had a gun and a badge and he wouldn't hesitate to use either.

He sometimes still had nightmares about JJ's face in hospital that night. The rage he'd felt then licked through his veins with renewed vigour.

"So you're... together now?" Shane asked, watching JJ closely.

"Yes," Ethan said, pulling JJ even closer. "We are."

Shane narrowed his eyes and Ethan could tell JJ's ex was trying to sniff out any bullshit. He could also see the man still held a torch for her. "We're engaged," Ethan added for good measure and was relieved that JJ had the good sense to keep her mouth shut and play along.

Shane looked from one to the other. His eyes coming to rest on JJ again and Ethan wanted to gouge the bastard's eyes out, so he could never again taint her with his gaze.

"Congratulations," he said to JJ, ignoring Ethan. "I really don't want any trouble. I'm trying to start my life again. Put my past behind me."

Ethan couldn't give one fuck about Shane Gallagher's sorry new life. As far as he was concerned, Shane's past, and what he'd done to JJ, would always be front and centre.

"How convenient for you," Ethan said.

"I was hoping we could be friends," Shane continued his entreaty, his eyes appealing to JJ.

JJ backed up to him even closer at the suggestion, her heart hammering harder, but he was proud of the strength in her voice when she said, "That's never going to happen."

Shane looked taken aback at her unwavering rejection. "Okay... fair enough," he said. "I deserve that. I just... be happy okay?" He looked at Ethan. "Make her happy."

"Leave," Ethan said, putting on his cop voice again. "That'll make us _both_ happy."

Shane nodded. "I'm going. Goodbye, JJ."

He waited for JJ to acknowledge him, but, when it became obvious that she wasn't going to, Shane turned away a little awkwardly and headed for the stairs.

Ethan shut the door with his free hand and turned JJ in his arms with the other. Wordlessly, she sank right in there, her face pressed hard into the middle of his chest, as if she was trying to burrow herself inside.

Adrenaline buzzed and skittered through his system as the confrontation passed. On the job, adrenaline gave him an edge and he always welcomed it as it honed his senses and sharpened his perception. In his personal life, he could do without it.

Less than an hour ago he'd have been relieved if JJ had decided to leave town and now he didn't want to let her out of his sight. Not with her creep ex lurking in the area.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his chin resting on the top of her head.

"Yep," she said, but her voice shook and her death grip on his T-shirt was going to leave two wrinkle marks for sure.

"You heard him, he doesn't want trouble," he said, desperate to assure her.

Trouble was, Ethan didn't believe it for a moment.

She pulled back and he looked down into her worried hazel eyes. "He was watching me last night," she said.

Ethan frowned. "What?"

"Last night after I closed up I went out to the veranda for a while. It's so nice out there late at night... really quiet... Anyway I heard this noise, like a soft shuffle of a shoe or something? I couldn't see anything but I had the eeriest feeling I was being watched."

Her knuckles pressed into his chest as her grip on his shirt continued. "It was him," she said and he felt the small shudder rippling through her muscles. "I just know it."

Ethan gathered her close again, as a hot fist rammed itself into his diaphragm. _He knew it too._ JJ wasn't someone given to flights of fancy or melodrama—unlike Delia—and he absolutely trusted her instincts. If she felt she was being watched last night then he believed her and he had no doubt that her bastard ex fit the creepy stalker bill.

"I'm not going to let him hurt you again. Especially," he smiled, "now we're getting hitched."

She shifted back slightly to look at him. "What on earth possessed you to say that, Ethan Weston?" she asked, shaking her head but smiling at him anyway.

Ethan smiled. Her face was so familiar to him. The way her loose curls just brushed her shoulders, her nice wide mouth, cheeks that puffed up like a chipmunk when she smiled. Why hadn't he ever noticed how those features added up to a mighty attractive package? She wasn't classically beautiful, or even pretty in the way Delia had always been, but there was something compelling about her face.

No freaking way was Shane getting a chance to mess it up again.

His raised his hand and trailed the back of it down one perfect cheek. "I needed him to know that there was _no_ hope, _no_ way, _no_ chance of reconciliation. I needed him to know that he's going to have to go through _me_ to get to you."

"Well, that's very sweet," she said flippantly, "but all he needs to do is ask around to know we're not engaged."

"We'll have to be convincing then, won't we?" he teased.

" _Can_ we be convincing?" she asked. "After last night maybe that's not such a good idea? We're supposed to be _moving on_. Forgetting about what happened, remember?"

Ethan had to admit the timing couldn't be worse, given what had just happened between them. Even less than an hour ago he would have considered it a Very. Bad. Idea. Never going to happen. But Shane's arrival had thrown them a curve ball and nothing was more important than JJ's safety.

If that meant a few little white lies and public displays of affection then so be it.

He also had to admit, after last night, he wouldn't have to _pretend_ sexual interest in his _friend_ JJ whom he'd never thought of in that way _at all_.

No siree.

He doubted he'd ever be able to think about her in a platonic way again. He sure as hell was going to notice whether she was wearing a bra or not from now on!

Even holding her close like this, the smell of sex between them, his body was remembering vividly how well they'd fit together. He glanced at her mouth and was hit by the desire to prove to her just how convincing he could be.

"Well, now," he said, his voice thick in his throat. "Let's see."

She didn't move away as his gaze zeroed in on her mouth. In fact hers zeroed in on his too and he took that as an open invitation, his head slowly descending, his hand furrowing into her hair, his palm cradling her jaw.

Her mouth was soft, like he remembered, and when it opened on a small sigh a full blast of testosterone roared through his system, demanding he get nearer. His hands dropped to her shoulders and he walked her a pace backwards, pushing her against the door, bumping her head back as he kissed her deeper, harder, longer, his tongue sweeping inside her mouth, tangling with hers.

His pulse pounded through his ears as his nose filled with her smell and his ears filled with the husky rasp of her moan. Her fingers fisted in his shirt again, twisting it hard, dragging him nearer, plastering herself to him.

She tasted so damn good. Coffee and sugar and hot, wild woman. The press of her breasts against his chest felt insanely good and he wanted to feel them so bad, to taste them, he couldn't think of anything else. Before he knew it his hand was moving to the hem of her T-shirt, breaching it, travelling up underneath, gliding over waist and ribs, his fingers brushing the slight curve at the underside before his hand claimed the prize.

It was just supposed to be a kiss, but when she moaned again and arched her back, pushing herself into his palm, it felt like a whole hell of a lot more. He wanted more. He wanted to strip off her clothes, put his mouth to the hard nipple grating against his palm, slide his hand into the heat between her thighs.

He wanted to do her against the door, and thirty years of friendship be damned.

He brushed his thumb over the nipple and JJ gasped, breaking their kiss. Ethan sucked in a breath, his mind jumbled, his hand stilling. He pressed his forehead to hers, their breathing loud and tortured, thick with desire and thwarted intent.

What the hell was he doing? He was supposed to be proving a point. Not copping a feel. Since when had he _ever_ lacked control? He'd spent the past fourteen years as a small-town cop, being measured and disciplined and _in control_.

He shut his eyes, withdrew his hand, took a step back. "What do you think?" he said, giving her a half-smile, determined to make light of it despite how sexy her mouth was with his kisses still glistening upon it. And his excited dick bitching at him about the sudden disconnect.

"Convincing enough?"

JJ looked dazed, her palms finding the door behind her and flattening against it as if she was going to fall down if she didn't. She nodded. "Yeah..." She cleared her throat. "That'll do it."

"Good. Because I'm not going anywhere while that smarmy prick is hanging around. I'm moving in."

## Chapter Five

Ethan wasn't on her couch when she let herself in at just before midnight on Sunday night and JJ breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe he'd come to his senses after his ridiculous statement this morning. She'd spent a good hour trying to talk him out of the need to pretend quite so realistically about their _engaged_ status.

She doubted even Shane would be stupid enough to try anything with the protection Ethan had implied this morning. Shane had always disliked Ethan, and particularly her friendship with him; it had been one of the sticking points in their marriage, as Shane had become more and more possessive. But he'd always had a healthy respect for Ethan as a cop. Even more so when Ethan had hunted him down after the assault. She really didn't think Shane needed the _keep out_ message spelled any clearer.

She kicked off her shoes, navigating the darkened interior as she headed for her room and a much longed for shower. She hauled her T-shirt over her head and tossed it on the ground outside her door. The button on her fly came next as she strode towards the light spilling from the ensuite. She usually left it on so she could see where she was going when she stumbled in at half-past-stupid o'clock.

The zip sounded loud in the silence as she pulled it down. She paused in front of the doorway and hooked her thumbs in the waist band, eyes downcast preparing to wiggle out of her skin-tight jeans. And almost leapt out of her skin when Ethan said, "Evening, JJ."

She gasped as she looked up, her heart crashing in her chest as the adrenaline in her system skyrocketed to stroke levels. "Holy shit!" she swore at him in a loud whisper. "You scared the crap out of me!"

"Sorry," he said, but didn't look remotely contrite.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed.

She didn't know why she was still whispering. Maybe it was the night. Maybe it was the advanced hour. Maybe it was that he was naked beneath his towel.

And she wasn't exactly the most dressed she'd ever been either.

A fact she was only too aware of as his gaze drifted to her bra. Her very see-through bra. Her belly heated. Her nipples froze to tight hard points.

She caught the slight widening of his eyes as he abruptly pulled his gaze back to her face and valiantly attempted conversation, like he hadn't just seen sexual arousal in action. She supposed she should have covered up, placed her hands over her breasts. But the man had already seen them naked. Touched them, tasted them.

It was a bit late to act like a blushing virgin now.

He cleared his throat. "I needed a shower."

Which still didn't explain why he was standing in _her_ bathroom. Looking all big and broad wrapped in nothing but one of her practically threadbare towels. Water dripping from the ends of his scraggly hair. Running down his chest. Following the central furrow that bisected his abs and led all the way down to...

She too dragged her gaze back to his face. His gorgeous face with his salt-and-pepper whiskers and the sexy little indent in his chin. "Is the shower at your place broken?" she asked sweetly.

He shoved his hands on his hips. "I told you, I'm staying here while Shane is in the area."

JJ tried really hard not to notice how narrow his hips were or the outline of what she knew to be a very impressive piece of his anatomy, but his stance wasn't exactly helping. "I told you I don't think that's necessary."

His jaw clenched and his beautiful lips thinned out. "It is, trust me. Why don't you have a shower and then we'll talk? There are some things you need to know."

JJ blinked. That sounded ominous. Part of her wanted to argue just for the hell of it, but it was midnight, she was tired, and they were both nearly naked. Not the wisest dress code given what had happened between the two of them in the last twenty-four hours.

"Fine," she said.

There was a moment of awkwardness as he went to move out of the bathroom and she went to move in. Their bodies brushed together in the narrow opening—the tips of her nearly naked breasts against his fully naked chest. His towel grazing the front of her jeans.

"Sorry," he mumbled, as he stepped out onto the carpet flooring.

And then he was gone and she was reaching for the vanity, sagging against it, drawing in a shaky breath. She inspected her face in the mirror and didn't like the sappy, indecisive look she saw there.

Like a woman who'd taken leave of her senses.

"Get a grip," she told her reflection, before turning away, shucking off her jeans and underwear, sliding the door open to the shower and stepping inside, turning the spray onto cold.

Unfortunately it didn't really help her heated thoughts and she closed her eyes against the image of a naked Ethan in her shower. His scent closed in around her in the confined space and the hard, cold spray stinging her nipples set up a swirl of longing in her abdomen.

She turned her back to the spray and the unwanted sexual stimulation, leaning her forehead against the tiles. For God's sake it wasn't as if Ethan hadn't been in her shower before. He'd used her facilities several times over the years.

But this was different.

He'd kissed her, slid into her, pounded into her, come long and deep and hard inside her.

She was aware of him in ways she'd never been before.

And the images of him joining her beneath the spray just wouldn't quit. Sliding his arms around her waist, pulling her back into him, his erection nudging her buttocks as one big hand glided up her stomach, over her ribs, claiming a breast, squeezing it, torturing a nipple already excruciatingly aroused.

The other hand heading south, slipping between her legs.

JJ groaned as she turned around and let the full force of the shower hit her square in the face. _Do not think about Ethan doing you in the shower._

What the hell was wrong with her lately? She was acting like a teenager on heat. Erotic fantasies in the shower. Hot daydreams at work. Wet dreams at night. She was thirty-freaking-five for crying out loud, not fifteen.

But it _had_ been a long time.

And weren't female sex drives supposed to peak in their thirties?

Either way, her sex drive had picked a hell of a time to get loud. Go into _overdrive_.

And she would not give it any satisfaction tonight.

She joined Ethan ten minutes later. "Make it quick," she announced as she headed to where he was making coffee in the kitchenette. "I'm tired." And really freaking horny. "I'm desperate for a little shut-eye."

Actually, with him in only a pair of boxers riding low on his hips, what she was desperate for didn't remotely involve shutting her eyes, although being horizontal on her bed was definitely part of it.

But denial wouldn't kill her.

"Coffee?" he asked.

She shook her head. As if she wasn't going to have enough trouble getting to sleep with him out here in nothing but boxers. She didn't need to add a hit of caffeine into her hyper-aroused state.

He regarded her for a moment over the rim of the mug. He studiously avoided looking anywhere else other than her face and JJ felt about as sexy as tooth decay in her oversized T-shirt that came to mid-thigh and advertised Four X beer.

"I had a dig around in Gallagher's past today," he finally said.

JJ frowned. "Isn't that illegal?"

"A known criminal is moving into my jurisdiction. That's called being prepared."

"What did you find out?"

"He did time in a Sydney prison for assault and battery."

"Who?" she asked, a cold hand squeezing her gut at the knowledge that she'd once thought him charming and funny.

How could she have been so wrong about him? Had she been that desperate she'd been blind to his mean streak?

"Some guy in a pub. Beat him unconscious."

JJ shut her eyes at the thought of it. She opened them again. "How long?"

"Six years. He served four and got out on good behaviour."

Much longer than he'd ever gotten for assaulting her.

"His parole period was up two weeks ago."

It didn't take long for the implications to settle in. He'd been a free man for two weeks and had immediately headed north. To Jumbuck Springs. To her? "I see."

Ethan cocked an eyebrow. "Do you? Do you really understand what a threat he is? I know you pride yourself on your independence, but I don't like him being here one little bit. I don't think you're safe while he's around."

She swallowed at the note of impenetrable granite in his voice. "Of course I understand," she said irritably. "I might like my independence but I'm not going to be stupid about it."

"Good," he nodded. "So I'm here for the duration. Better get used to it."

JJ bristled at his declaration, no matter how much safer she felt. "Fine," she huffed. "But I _can_ defend myself, you know. I own a gun and I know how to use it."

"Your shotgun under the bar isn't going to help you up here, is it?"

"So I'll bring it up every night," she said, crossing her arms, staring him down.

His gaze dropped and lingered on the way her breasts pushed against the fabric of her shirt, tightening her nipples. When his eyes returned to meet hers he was frowning, his gaze stormy.

"What if he ends up using it on you?"

"I _can_ handle myself."

"I know that," he acknowledged, which took some of the sting out of his doubt. She wasn't used to Ethan treating her like some fragile little flower. "I just don't like the idea of you waving some firearm around."

"Yeah, well, I don't like the idea of you living here." _Walking around in next to nothing._ "So we're even. And what the hell are you going to do when Connie gets back from Paris? She going to move in here too?"

His gaze shifted away from hers and she knew he wanted Connie embroiled in this farce as little as she did. "I'm hoping Gallagher won't be a problem by then."

"He said he was going to be around for the next couple of months," she pointed out. "They'll be shearing right through November until just before Christmas, you know that."

"I know. Let's just say I'm going to see if I can't make him see the sense in moving on."

"Now that definitely sounds like police harassment to me. And that _is_ illegal." The last thing she wanted was to get Ethan into trouble with his superiors because, sure as God made little green apples, Shane would bleat long and loud about unfair treatment given any provocation.

"Don't worry, it won't come to that," he assured, but JJ wasn't.

She'd never seen Ethan angrier than he'd been that night when the doctor had taken one look at her face and distress and state of shock and called the police. The rage coiling his muscles rigid had been palpable and his eyes had turned an arctic shade of obsidian, like black ice. Deadly. Lethal.

He hadn't stopped for three days until he'd tracked Shane down and dragged him back to Jumbuck Springs in cuffs. And his fury when Shane had gotten off in a Brisbane court with only community service, because it had been his first offence, was legendary.

"Just promise me you'll be careful. You'll stick around town. You won't go anywhere alone."

"Cross my heart and hope to die," she said, drawing a cross over her heart, which drew his gaze like a homing signal and for a moment they just stood there, her hand on her breast, his eyes burning a hole in the place where fingers met fabric.

He seemed to take a big deep breath in, his chest expanding, his belly tightening.

Crap.

How was she ever going to survive living with him when he had a chest that should be bronzed and hung in an exhibit for perfect male specimens? When he was all big and broad and... Ethan. All protective and territorial. All big bad cop.

When the memory of him inside her thrummed through her blood with a persistent back beat.

"Anyway..." she said, dragging her gaze off the neatly portioned sections of abdomen, like little parcels of heaven, "I'm pooped. See you in the morning."

She didn't wait for him to acknowledge her. She needed to get away from him before she did something really foolish like fall to her knees and lick those delicious pillows of man muscle.

Jesus—she was going mad. Her libido was out of control. If she didn't do something about it soon she may just end up taking little old Mr Applegate up on it next time he tipsily propositioned her.

Thank God for Dennis.

With the bathroom light illuminating the path she strode to her bedside drawers, trying to remember the last time Dennis had come out to play. He was probably the most neglected artificial penis in the entire universe. She frowned, trying to remember—a year?

Did the batteries even work anymore? Did batteries corrode inside those things?

It _was_ state of the art, with all the bells and whistles, but even high-quality toys were only as good as their batteries.

Okay, she wasn't going to use it _now_ , but she wasn't sure how long she could last without some relief so it needed to be in good functioning order.

She pulled open the drawer and scrabbled about in the clogged space that was filled with useless bits and pieces. She located the much-neglected Dennis—because if she was going to have intimate relations with an object then it at least had to have a name—right at the back.

She looked down at it— _him_ —and flicked it— _him_ —on. Dennis gave a few pathetic trembles. She flicked it up to high and Dennis fibrillated a little more, but not in any kind of way that looked like it might be remotely satisfying.

JJ tried to remember where the batteries went as she moved closer to the bathroom light. She clawed at the cylindrical bottom and made a note to duck down to Smithy's Hardware for some new ones first chance she got in the morning. He'd probably want to know what she wanted them for because Smithy loved to know the ins and outs of everyone's lives, but she was sure they took the same size as the average torch so Smithy should be easily distracted.

The battery latch finally gave and she almost cheered as the two heavy items fell into her hand.

"JJ?"

JJ's heart almost stopped at the voice behind her, then did a strange leap into her mouth as her hand tightened around Dennis. "Y-yes?" she said, desperately trying to think of a way of getting through this.

"JJ?"

She cringed a little more as she choked poor Dennis in a death grip. Then she took a deep breath and turned around, hiding Dennis behind her back like a two year old would hide contraband—with the accompanying guilty look. "Yes?"

He looked at her and frowned. "What have you got there?" he demanded.

"Nothing," she denied. Probably a little too quickly. "Just... checking the batteries in the torch."

Ethan narrowed his eyes at JJ. She was blushing. JJ _never_ blushed. The woman had run her parent's pub since they'd retired to Noosa for some sand and surf a few years ago. She could drink like a fish, swear like a sailor and arm wrestle seventy-five per cent of the general male population into submission. Her word was law in The Stockman.

And yet here she stood, blushing, looking guilty as hell. She was hiding something. And he knew in his gut—the same gut that had kept him alert and alive in a profession that could be hazardous even in the back of beyond—what it was.

She had another gun she wasn't telling him about.

Christ! She was probably going to kill herself _and him_ at the first thing that went bump in the night.

He strode towards her. "No," he said holding out his hand for the offending item. "No gun, JJ."

"It's not a gun," she said, stubbornly refusing to give up her contraband.

But he didn't believe her. Her guilt was so obvious she might as well have it written in big, black Nikko pen all over her face. He reached behind her, grasping her biceps and dragging them out from behind her. She resisted all the way, but it was useless against his superior strength.

She glared at him, her cheeks pink, as her hands revealed the true nature of what she was hiding. Ethan stared at the giant silicone phallus in the palm of her hand. Actually no, no way was it small enough to fit in anyone's palm. He blinked down at it in all its hot pink glory.

Or maybe that was garishness.

"Bloody hell," he murmured as he let go of her arms and took in its gargantuan length and girth. _A lesser man may have been intimidated_. But Ethan felt his loins stir. Felt the tickle of titillation stroking light fingers over his belly and thighs. And he wasn't exactly dressed in clothing that would camouflage his arousal. "You pick the biggest one they had?"

She blushed even deeper. "I have needs," she defended hotly. "Needs which, _might I add_ , weren't exactly fulfilled recently, unlike somebody _else_ in this room."

Ethan couldn't dispute her argument. He had taken what she offered and not returned the favour and that was something he _never_ did. But short of repeating what had happened, there wasn't a whole lot he could do about it. And now in particular, with them living in each other's pockets, crossing that line again would just be plain stupid.

Especially if he still wanted JJ as _his friend_ after all this was over.

And he did.

He sure as hell wasn't going to get that by throwing away that damn stupid piece of equipment and showing her how much better the real thing was.

Nope. Ethan was all for women taking charge of their sexual needs. God knew he'd done that enough himself. In Jumbuck Springs masturbation was the only safe, gossip-free sex there was for a single-father, divorcee, chief of police.

He took his hat off to JJ. Even if it was something he'd never wanted to know about her. Even if she was going to be getting off in the next room while he lay out on that awful couch wondering...

"I'm... sorry... I really am..." he said, dragging his head out of JJ's sheets and back into the conversation about his lack of manners last night. "I don't usually—"

She held up her hand in a stop signal. "I told you I could take care of my own orgasms thank you very much. Dennis and I have been doing just fine for the last few years."

Ethan blinked at the totally limp name she'd given her vibrator. "Dennis? You call him Dennis?"

"Yes," she bristled. "You have a problem with that?"

Ethan shrugged, not quite believing that he was having a conversation with JJ— _JJ_ —about the pet name for her penis substitute.

My, how the last twenty-four hours had changed things!

"Seems a little beige. I would have thought something this impressive," he said indicating the equipment she still held in her hand in a way that was making him wince, "would at least be called Vlad."

She gave him an unimpressed smile. "Very funny. Was there some reason you barged into my room?"

"I was just going to say I'm going in to work at six in the morning, I'll try not to wake you."

"I hope you don't expect me to make your breakfast."

Ethan grinned. JJ's pink cheeks were cute as hell as she obviously struggled to have a normal conversation with Dennis hot in her hand. "Absolutely not." He waited for her to respond but when she didn't he said, "Goodnight. Have fun."

Her gaze flicked to him with immediate suspicion. "The batteries are flat," she said briskly.

"Whatever," he said, turning and walking away with as much nonchalance as he could muster for a man with a semi hard-on in a pair of loose boxers.

And a vision in his head that might require a little artificial relief of his own if this cohabitation thing dragged on too long.

## Chapter Six

Ethan rose at five-thirty the next morning after a restless night thanks to the awful couch and a bright pink vibrator called Dennis. He walked the six blocks to the police station, his brain mulling over his list of things to do today. Because if he didn't he was going to start thinking about other things.

Like missing Connie.

Like Delia coming back from Paris ready to screw him over one more time.

Like JJ. Her touch, her taste, her smell. The noises she made when he kissed her. How damn good she'd felt clamped hot and tight around him.

And Dennis.

Ethan was a great believer in not borrowing trouble and as such he needed to concentrate on the things he could do something about.

Missing his daughter there was no cure for.

Delia doing her worst hadn't happened yet.

JJ... Well he didn't even begin to know what to do about JJ and how much he'd screwed up there.

But he knew in the way a cop always did—in his gut—that having Shane Gallagher in town was going to end badly.

And _that_ he could do something about.

A young police constable called Carl Stevens was manning the desk as Ethan strode into the station. His shift was due to finish in an hour and he was obviously struggling to stay awake. He snapped to attention, though, the second his sluggish brain computed who had just walked through the doors.

"You're in early, Chief," he said.

Ethan, preoccupied, gave some non-committal grunt and headed straight for the shower. A cold one. A very cold one. Then he turned his hand to some paperwork. There was always so much freaking paperwork, especially when you were the boss. When the clock hit eight he picked up the phone and started dialling outlying properties that ran sheep. He knew and had good relationships with every one of the landowners in the area.

And he was counting on that.

It took him three phone calls to locate the property where the shearing was taking place. He stood from the desk, grabbed his duty belt from its locked drawer and slung it low around his hips, the weight of it and the items it held settling with reassuring comfort.

His Glock, an extendable baton, a pair of handcuffs, a torch, a radio, a taser and some capsicum spray. He always felt a little naked without them at hand and today especially he needed to be every inch the cop—the enforcer—he was.

He walked past the day-shift desk constable on his way out and Ethan greeted him by first name. In a town where half a dozen police officers _were_ the entire force, no-one stood on ceremony. "I'm heading out to the Dowling's. I'm on five-one," he said referring to the radio channel, "if you need me."

Ethan didn't catch the acknowledgement as the door shut behind him. He was a man on a mission and nothing else registered.

It took thirty minutes to get out to the thirty-thousand-hectare property that had been in the Dowling family for generations. Ethan pulled up in a cloud of dust in front of the low-slung homestead.

Dogs barked and ran towards him as he grabbed his navy-blue cap, pulled it low on his head and stepped out of his marked, solid-as-they-came, four-wheel-drive vehicle. He absently petted the assortment of excited dogs as he made his way around to the yards at the back of the house.

Bill Dowling was in the middle of a fenced-off yard, surrounded by sheep waiting to be shorn in the big shed set further back amongst a stand of towering gums. His faithful blue heeler was at his side, an akubra shaded his eyes. But he still spotted his visitor and waded through the livestock, hauling himself up over the horizontal fence struts and down the other side.

"Chief," he greeted as he leapt to the ground and offered his outstretched hand to Ethan.

Ethan shook it. "Bill. Got your work cut out for you I see."

The older man nodded. "Busy week." And then, in the way of the bush he just came right out and asked. "What brings the long arm of the law out this way?"

Over Bill's shoulder Ethan could see activity in the shearing shed through the big open doors, but it was too far away to make out individuals. "One of your shearers. Shane Gallagher. I want him gone."

Bill regarded him for a moment, waving his hand in front of his face to shoo a persistent fly. "That's not up to me Ethan. I just hire the contractor. The shearers are his responsibility."

"He's JJ's ex."

Ethan didn't have to say more. Everyone who'd lived in these parts long enough knew what had happened to JJ that night and who was to blame. Including Bill.

"Right," Bill said, his jaw clenching and unclenching, obviously uncomfortable at the situation. "Well, you can go ahead and have a word with the contractor—he's at the shed right now—and I'll back you all the way. But I don't like your chances. Shearing teams are a dying breed, bloody hard to come by these days and they're a militant lot. Sack one and the rest are just as likely to down tools. And I need my sheep sheared, Ethan."

Ethan nodded. He understood. Times were tough and things were just getting back on track after the bushfire that had gone through the area just over a year ago. Bill couldn't afford to have a strike on his hands. Nor could the rest of the outlying properties, whose shearing season would also be jeopardised by industrial action.

Being born and bred in the country, Ethan didn't need to have the subtext explained to him.

A trail of working dogs accompanied him on his walk to the shed, the morning sun already hot on his neck. Ethan spotted Shane in standard shearing clothes—jeans and a singlet—bent over a kicking sheep as he approached the contractor, Richie Abrahams. Shane looked up and their gazes clashed. There was a curl to his lip and defiance in his eyes that hardened Ethan's muscles to steel.

Richie, who looked like a has-been jockey, was, as Bill had predicted, unhappy about Ethan's demand and not having a bar of it, quoting workplace law at him. Ethan found himself wishing, not for the first time, that he wasn't wearing this uniform. That he could mete out some street justice—the only kind people like Gallagher really understood.

But that wasn't the Weston way. His father had never done an underhanded thing in his twenty-plus years on the force and Ethan wasn't about to bring his good name into disrepute because his knuckles itched to dish out a lesson.

Shane Gallagher wasn't worth his reputation. Or career.

With Richie refusing to budge, Ethan knew his hands were tied, but that didn't mean he couldn't still throw his weight around and put the fear of God into the weaselly little contractor.

Ethan took a step right into Richie's personal space and lowered his voice to that growl he'd perfected when dealing with criminals over the years. "You keep Gallagher on a leash, you hear?" he said, poking him in his chicken chest for effect. "I'm holding _you_ personally responsible for his _every m_ ovement. Understand?"

Richie gulped and nodded.

"So help me, if anything happens, I'm going to come after you too—do you hear me?"

The little guy swallowed. "Aye, aye Chief."

Ethan stared hard for good measure. "Good," he growled. "I'm glad we understand each other."

He flicked his gaze over Richie's shoulder to where Shane stood watching the confrontation. Ethan shot another hard glare at the man, making a V out of two fingers and pointing them towards his own eyes then turning them around to jab them in the air at the level of Shane's eyes.

I'm watching you.

As he turned and walked away he could feel the burn of Gallagher's gaze right between his shoulder blades.

"Three beers, luv. Make them frosty, no head."

JJ knew that smart-ass voice anywhere and she rolled her eyes as she turned around to face Marcus Weston. Jarrod and Lacey were also in tow.

"We don't do head at The Stockman," she said, falling into the same old patter as she pulled two on-tap beers. "We're a classy establishment, we are."

Marcus, the Weston family comedian, quick with a laugh and a joke, gave a loud hoot. "Absolutely. The Ritz of Jumbuck we always say."

It was good to see Marcus back to his old self. As a paramedic, he'd suffered from PTSD after the fires last year. Thankfully a temp psychologist called Juanita had made him see he needed help. He was back at work and heavily involved in the footy club again and had also managed to put a sparkly ring on Juanita's finger.

They were loved up, shacked up and planning a New Year wedding. Lacey, Jumbuck Spring's very own fashion designer, was currently designing the wedding dress.

JJ plonked the beers on the bar mat and they all took appreciative swigs.

" _Damn,_ that's good," Marcus said.

"Sweet," Lacey agreed.

Jarrod nodded. "Nectar."

JJ looked at Ethan's siblings. The brothers were alike in that big, broad, country-boy-capable way, but so different in others. Marcus was the image of his handsome father, where Jarrod, with his red hair and green eyes, took after their mother. His wedding band flashed in the overhead light as he took another sip. Selena was a very lucky woman.

Lacey, their little sister, was a combination of all of them. She'd thrived since leaving college and coming back to live in Jumbuck Springs last year, and was practically cornering the market in wedding dresses for the rural crowd. She was engaged to Coop, an ex-cop and friend of Ethan's, but hadn't set a date yet.

"So," Marcus said after another swig of his beer, "We were all just wondering if you've seen Ethan around?"

JJ fumbled a little as she wiped the bar down. Crap. What was she supposed to say to that?

"We've called by the last two nights," Lacey added, "to check he's not missing Connie too much or hating being alone in that big old house, but he hasn't been home."

JJ shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't know. Maybe he's finally getting laid while Connie's away?"

It was a running joke between her and Marcus and Jarrod that Ethan needed to cut loose a bit more. Lacey had been too young to be involved in such speculation over the years, but at the age of twenty-two had been included in the fun.

Marcus eyes grew dramatically large. "Laid? Hmm, that's interesting, isn't it Jarrod? Lacey?"

"Why, yes," Jarrod said, playing along with deliberate sarcasm.

"So interesting," Lacey agreed.

Marcus grinned, obviously enjoying himself. "You wanna know why, JJ? Because," he said not giving her a chance to respond, "Ethan told us he'd been here, at _your_ place the last two nights? Is there something you want to confess? Are you sleeping with our brother, Jemima Jane? Cos I gotta say, he has some pretty impressive scratches down his back."

JJ narrowed her eyes, looking first at one Weston then the other, then the other. She folded her arms, refusing to answer for a moment, until she thought of an answer that didn't incriminate her. "It's not what you think," she said lamely.

"So he's not getting _laid_ then?" Marcus pushed. "Cos you know if anyone needs it, it's Ethan, right?"

JJ paused again as images of Ethan getting well and truly laid undulated through her head in erotic technicolour. "There is nothing going on between your brother and me," she said evasively, keeping her voice low, aware that nobody knew how to mind their own business in this place.

"Really?"

"Really," JJ nodded, her voice steady, her gaze unwavering as she lied straight to Marcus's face. JJ knew she could bluff her way out of the situation. She'd been putting one past the Weston brothers for a lot of years.

And that should have been the end of it. Would have been. If only Ethan hadn't chosen that moment to walk into the pub and assert his claim. He strode towards them in that easy way of his, the perfect combination of his father's height and looks and his mother's poise and presence, a gleam of purpose lighting his brown eyes.

Marcus, Jarrod and Lacey all turned to watch. "Here he is, the man of the hour," Marcus grinned.

But Ethan ignored him, his gaze fixed solely on his quarry as he grabbed the edge of the wooden bar and vaulted over the top of it, landing with style and grace on her side. JJ was vaguely aware of every head swivelling in their direction as he grabbed her round the waist, yanked her against him and kissed her hard on the mouth.

Every cell in her body melted at the contact. Her brain short-circuited as it overloaded with conflicting signals. How right it was. How wrong it was. But her lips responded—softened. Moved. Sought. Opened.

Then just as abruptly he pulled away and smiled down at her. "Hi honey, I'm home," he said just loud enough for everyone to hear him in the absolute silence that had fallen inside the pub. "Don't be too late tonight, I have plans for you."

And then he gave her ass a squeeze and let her go, saluting his siblings as he headed for the door that led to the stairs. That led to her room.

Their room.

JJ stared after him, watching him go as did everyone else. She turned back, all eyes now on her. "Alright, show's over," she said. "You can all stop gawping."

The curious locals returned reluctantly to their drinks and conversations, but there was no such luck with the remaining Westons. "So, you were saying?" Jarrod asked.

JJ's brain was too scrambled to deal with them. "Isn't there a fire somewhere you could be putting out?" she said.

Jarrod shook his head. "I don't know. Reckon you're looking pretty hot and bothered though. Shall I call up the guys and get them to bring the truck around?"

Marcus laughed at her exasperated look. "Relax, JJ. Ethan told us about Shane being back in town and we also know about Delia's intention to apply for custody. We know you're _faking it,"_ he whispered as he leaned forward conspiratorially. "We think it makes good sense. That it's a perfectly symbiotic relationship."

JJ cocked an eyebrow. "Symbiotic? You swallow a dictionary?"

"Hey, I'm a highly skilled medical professional," he grinned. "I know symbiotic."

"But," Jarrod said, his face growing serious, "we also know you've been carrying a torch for our brother for a lot of years and we want to check you're _really_ okay with it."

JJ blinked as all three Westons watched her intently. Their eyes held compassion and a frankness she wanted to shy from. They knew she was in love with Ethan?

What. The. Fuck?

Heat flooded to her cheeks. How many other people in the town knew it? "I... don't know what you're talking about."

In the midst of her embarrassment, denial came easily. It was her knee-jerk response every time the good folks of Jumbuck Springs had ever dared speculate about her friendship with Ethan.

"JJ," Lacey said softly. "It's okay. Your secret is safe with us. We just don't want you to... get hurt, that's all. When it's over. When Shane leaves town and the custody thing with Delia is sorted."

JJ thought it was sweet that Ethan's family were looking out for her, but it was depressing to think that none of them thought their fake relationship could develop into something real. That no-one thought she actually had a shot with him when the reasons for being together no longer counted.

Not _good old JJ_.

She knew it was because they believed, as she did, that Ethan was still in love with Delia. But it didn't lessen the sting.

"It's fine," she assured them with a smile that made her face ache. "I know what this is. I know it's a mutually beneficial thing." She glanced at Marcus. "Symbiotic. I know it's temporary. I'll be fine. Don't worry."

All three Westons relaxed in the face of her assurances. "You're a good friend, JJ," Marcus said gruffly. "He's lucky to have you."

JJ smiled. Yup. _Good old JJ_.

The pub closed at ten on weeknights and Ethan was sitting on her lounge, watching the television in his jeans and no shirt, when JJ made her way up stairs. He turned around when she opened the door.

"Ah, the little woman returning from a hard day's work to cook my dinner and iron my shirts."

JJ made a very rude noise. "That'll be the day."

"Come, sit," he said standing and beckoning her over. "Tell me about your day, dear."

JJ took in the vast stretch of naked skin between his shoulders and his hips and thought sitting next to him sounded like a particularly heinous form of torture.

"Knock it off, Ethan," she grouched, kicking her shoes off. "I'm tired and my feet are killing me."

"Just practising," he said cheerfully. "Come on, I'll give your feet a rub," he offered. "I want to talk to you."

"That sounds ominous."

"Just keeping you up to date," he said.

JJ wasn't sure she wanted to hear what he had to say, and frankly she should have been running a hundred miles from his offer, but her feet betrayed her with a painful throb.

She'd kill for a foot rub.

"I'm still not ironing your shirts," she said, folding her arms.

He held up his hands and waggled them about. "No strings. I promise."

JJ moved towards him, mollified. But strangely depressed. Maybe she wanted strings. Big, fat strings that tied and pulled tight the longer they were together.

The kind of strings Lacey, Marcus and Jarrod clearly hadn't thought possible.

Ethan moved down to one end of the lounge and she took the other, propping herself against the arm, one foot extended. He reached for it and tucked it in close to his groin, his fingers automatically finding the tender flesh of the sole and pressing.

JJ bit down on a moan. It felt like heaven. And hell. Exquisite torture. Agonising pleasure. She shut her eyes instead.

"You smell like beer," he said.

He didn't. He smelled like soap— _her_ soap—and sweet liquorice. She loved the combination—so familiar. So Ethan.

"Occupational hazard," she murmured, keeping her eyes shut as his fingers worked magic on her left foot, a sigh escaping before she could drag it back.

"That good?" he asked.

Good? She needed to check if she was drooling. "Mmm," she said, not trusting her voice, as bolts of pleasure travelled up her foot to her calf and right between her thighs. They fanned higher, snaking through her belly and breasts, brushing fingers of heat over her shoulders, up her neck and spreading delicious tingles through her scalp.

God alone knew how many pressure points he was stimulating, but she was pretty sure he'd found the one for her clitoris and she squirmed against the couch trying to ease the sensation.

She dropped her head back onto the arm as his fingers continued their delicious onslaught. An image of her lifting her foot, trailing her big toe over his abs and higher to his pecs, took hold. Then bringing it down again, burrowing her foot into the snug denim V between his legs. Feeling the ridge of his arousal against the flat of her aching flesh, pushing into the hard length of him. Feeling the throb of his erection pulsing against the throb of her foot.

JJ suppressed another sigh as the heat between her legs intensified. Every stroke of his thumbs arrowed straight to her centre, as if he was stroking there instead. She remembered how hard and hot he'd felt the other night. How long it had been since she'd come apart in a man's arms.

And a throb located significantly further north than her foot started up deep and low.

God, was it possible to orgasm from a foot massage alone?

And, if so, could she manage it without him knowing?

## Chapter Seven

Ethan watched as JJ's head fell back against the arm of the couch, exposing the long stretch of her neck and thrusting her breasts ever so slightly upwards. He swallowed. _Bra._ She was definitely wearing a bra.

Perhaps offering JJ a foot massage hadn't been a particularly bright move...

It had seemed a pretty natural thing to do at the time. She'd had a long day on her feet and he gave a pretty mean foot massage. It made perfect sense.

And it was just JJ, right?

But then he hadn't taken into account how close her foot was going to be to a piece of his anatomy that didn't give two shits about the decades-old friendship between him and the owner of the foot.

Or how damn appreciative she was going to be.

He could hear her breathing growing rougher, see the uneven rise and fall of her chest. And the way her teeth dug into her bottom lip was really very distracting.

The skirt too was something he hadn't bargained on. It was a rare event to see JJ in anything but jeans. And, okay, it was long and flowing and tiered—nothing remotely provocative about it—but jeans would really have helped right now.

Helped him to remember this was _JJ_ for a start. Helped access-wise too. No point indulging the images running through his head with tight denim blocking his path. But a skirt was a different proposition. Even now the slippery material fell back a little more with each knead of his thumbs, riding back millimetre by millimetre, slowly exposing one bare toned calf.

He tried not to look but his eyes, like his dick, seemed to have a mind of their own and greedily followed the agonisingly slow reveal. His palms burned to leave the arch of her foot and slide to her ankle then on further taking the inside track to her calf, lingering a second or two, before travelling higher, watching as the skirt inched up, little by little.

He heard his own breath roughen as he wondered how far she'd let him go? Would she arch her back a little further if he went higher, revealing more and more of her leg? Would she moan if he did? Would she stop him if he pushed her skirt all the way to the top, till he could see the colour of her underwear?

Would she let him touch her there?

Let him strip away whatever scrap of lace she was wearing and bury his head between her legs like he should have the other night, but he'd been too liquored up and damn self-involved to think beyond his own needs?

Ethan shut his eyes against the images, struggling to remember that it was JJ he was thinking these things about. _JJ._ He didn't think those kind of things about JJ.

Or he hadn't anyway.

He'd been so adamant that they mustn't let what happened the other night happen again, but here he was having a fantasy about her while she sat less than two feet from him.

While her foot was in his lap.

He swallowed hard and tried to get his head back in the game. "I was out at the Dowling's today," he said, remembering why he'd wanted her to sit on the lounge with him in the first place.

Of course it would have sounded much more conversational had his voice not cracked like a teenage boy's.

She opened her eyes and bought her head up off the couch arm. "Oh?"

Ethan cleared his throat, but it was difficult to keep his brain on track when her hazel eyes had gone all smoky and her voice sounded as thick and loaded as his.

He sat up a little more, desperate to clear the fog, her heel retracting with the movement to a much safer distance down his thigh. "That's where the shearing crew is at the moment."

He watched as the news seemed to break through the loaded atmosphere of a moment ago with its harsh realism. JJ sat up a little too. She looked at where his hand kneaded her foot and pulled it away. "You spoke to him?"

"No," Ethan said as he automatically reached for her other foot and continued the massage. The urge to tuck it into his lap, push it against his granite-hard cock cried out to be fulfilled, but he was back in control of his actions again.

"I just wanted him to know that I'm watching his every move. And that wherever he is _that's_ where I'm going to be. Watching him."

"So, you're hoping intimidation is going to drive him away?"

Ethan smiled at her accurate assessment. "Something like that. And between that and you and I keeping up the façade of being together, I reckon he'll get the message and move on."

"Hence the rather inappropriate kiss behind the bar earlier?"

He grinned. "Excuse me, but I think it was a _very_ appropriate kiss for a newly engaged man to give to his fiancée."

She avoided his gaze as she said, "Well, the entire district is going to know about this tomorrow."

"Which was kind of the point," he said. Although he may have enjoyed it a tad more than was appropriate for a kiss that was all about putting on a show. "Now we'll just let the gossips do their worst."

"Marcus mentioned that you told them," JJ said, closing her eyes, and Ethan worked his fingers a little harder as a soft sigh escaped her mouth.

"Of course," he said, stroking his hands up towards her ankle, his gaze drifting higher, lingering on her breasts, small but perky. "We need them on the same page."

Her eyelids fluttered open and, caught out, he quickly pulled his gaze up to meet hers. There was a smoulder in her hazel eyes that reached right inside his pants and stroked.

"If this custody thing eventuates, we may need to keep this going for a while. Are you up for that?"

His dick, which suddenly got a whole lot harder, was definitely _up_ for that. "I'll do anything to keep Connie with me," he said, as he tried not to think about _up_ at all.

"As will I," she said. "But what are we going to do when Connie comes home in just under two weeks?"

Ethan shrugged, his brain not wanting to go there, his fingers working faster, deeper, as ankle bones gave away to smooth warm flesh. "I don't know. I guess if Shane's gone we'll be one of those old-fashioned couples who doesn't live together for as long as this thing with Delia takes. If he's still around, I guess you'll just have to move in with us, because I'm not leaving you here alone while he's still around."

His pulse beat a little harder at the suggestion, his thumbs stroking in time. Here, at her place, they could be a _couple_ in private and no-one knew he was sleeping on the couch. But at his house, they'd have Connie to consider. She may only be a teenager but she was smart, aware and observant. She'd want to know why they weren't sleeping together. Could even accidentally let slip that they weren't to Delia.

Which would mean no separate beds.

"I don't think that's such a good idea," JJ said, a strange little hitch in her voice.

Ethan couldn't have agreed more. It was possibly _the_ worst idea in the history of the world. He wanted nothing more than to get their relationship back to the way it had been. The way it had always been.

Where he didn't notice her bra. Or rub her feet.

But, he didn't want to get ahead of himself.

"Let's not worry about that now," he said, her skin smooth under his hand, kneading it in long reassuring strokes. "Let's just cross that bridge when—if—we get to it."

JJ nodded. "Sure..." her gaze dropped to her leg. "Of course," she said, her voice husky again as her eyes tracked the movement of his hands.

Ethan looked down too, surprised to find his hands had moved up her leg completely of their own volition. Her skirt was pushed up to her knee and her calf was warm and supple in his palm. The earlier image of her fully exposed leg, her underwear on display, revisited him and he dropped his hands from her calf as if it had spontaneously combusted.

"Sorry," he muttered.

JJ cleared her throat. "It's fine," she said, withdrawing her feet from the vicinity of his lap, planting them safely on the floor. "I'm beat anyway. Thanks for the... foot rub. Think I'll hit the sack."

Ethan nodded. "Sure," he said as she stood. "Night then."

"Night."

Ethan buried his face in his hands as soon as JJ had gone. Jesus—what the hell was the matter with him? This was _JJ_. He'd kept his hands off her for thirty-odd years—why was it so bloody hard to do so now?

Yes, they'd slept together, but it wasn't like that had been anything more than a sexual release valve. An unwise one, for sure, but still something that should be easy to categorise, catalogue and forget.

They were only pretending for crying out loud.

He'd do well to remember that next time by keeping his damn hands to himself. No more foot massages. No more touching other than what was absolutely required to convince Shane and Delia they were a force to be reckoned with.

JJ lay in bed an hour later, tossing and turning, the throb between her legs refusing to abate, demanding she do something about it. She considered Dennis. In fact she'd almost reached for him twice already, but there was something so damn depressing about a hot-pink vibrator after the real-live touch of Ethan's hands on her leg.

The conversation had gotten more and more difficult to follow as his hand had strayed from her foot to her ankle and then to her calf and she'd found herself hoping he'd go higher. That his fingers would brush the skin at the back of her knee and the inside of her thigh. That they'd keep going to where her thighs met at the top and stroke her there.

She'd have spread her legs for him for sure. There would have been no protest. No false modesty. She'd have welcomed his touch, raised her hips and silently invited him inside her. God knew it wouldn't have taken very much to push her over the edge. Just a stroke or two from his long fingers and she'd have been a goner.

Her sex throbbed in agreement and she rolled onto her side, stuffing a hand between her legs to ease the vicious ache, refusing to do anything about it. Ethan had been sound asleep when she went out to get a drink after her shower. And if he could be unaffected by it all then she sure as hell could.

Of course, he'd had a little relief not that long ago...

She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to think about relief. Refusing to succumb when the man who was causing all her frustration was sleeping one wall and a few metres away.

That would just be a new low.

She didn't need it. She didn't need Ethan. Or Dennis. She was a fully grown woman who was totally in control of her sexual urges. And abstinence never killed anyone.

She was sure she'd read that somewhere.

Still, this voracious sexual yearning for him was something new. Loving him for years, and pretending not to, was just a part of her life. A fact she'd become accustomed to a long time ago. So familiar to her it had lost its acuteness and ability to wound too deeply.

But this... ache, this... overriding urge to be with him sexually, was vicious. It was urgent and all freaking consuming and she wasn't sure if it would ever lose its edge.

But it had to. It just had to. Or she was going to go mad.

Could a person's libido drive them crazy?

She shut her eyes against the possibility of being a batty old lady roaming the streets of Jumbuck Springs, still drooling after the police chief. She just needed to get through the night that was all. It was worse at night. With him sleeping nearby. It would be better tomorrow.

_Tomorrow is another day_.

Full of things to keep her busy and people to distract her and Ethan being at the other end of town in his office—far from her sight and her thoughts.

Except it just didn't work out that way. Thanks to Ethan's daring public kiss the night before, almost every single customer wanted to talk about Ethan. And her.

Together.

Every time she turned around Ethan was on someone's lips. Someone telling her how lucky she was, or how fabulous he was or how handsome he was. Or how happy they were that poor Ethan was finally settling down with someone good and sensible, someone who'd make him a good wife and Connie a good mother.

Yeah, that one made her feel _real_ special.

Even Mrs Durrum, who lived next door to the Westons and was Jarrod's wife's grandmother, had commented how she'd overheard on the grapevine that Ethan was supposed to be an exceptional kisser and that, given the evidence of her own eyes just yesterday in this very pub, she had to concur that the gossip about his prowess was right.

JJ only just held back from telling Selena's granny that Ethan Weston could fuck pretty damn good too.

Suffice to say, Ethan's kiss had achieved its purpose, but all day with nothing but Ethan, Ethan, Ethan did not help with the _tomorrow is another day_ thing.

It did not help with the images.

It did not help with the horniness.

It did not help with the throb.

Nor did the nights. After three in a row of Ethan walking around in nothing but his boxers JJ was about ready to erupt. If she'd been prone to sleepwalking her deprived body would have already made a beeline for the couch and jumped his bones for sure.

By the fifth night of their cohabitation JJ was barely hanging on by a thread. Ethan had been standing at the sink making a coffee, in nothing but a towel, his hair damp from the shower, when she'd come home from work and it had taken all her willpower to return his cheery hello with one of her own and head for her room. Instead of doing what she'd wanted to do—whip his towel off, sink to her knees in front of him and blow his mind.

So after hours of her libido keeping her awake, staring at the ceiling, tossing and turning, she was pretty damn annoyed to be woken by a noise at two am when she'd not long drifted off to sleep.

For a moment or two she couldn't figure out what the noise was in the now-silent room and she strained in the still and quiet around her, wondering if she'd heard anything at all. But then it came again. A metallic scraping and she turned her head towards the locked French doors that opened onto the veranda. The ambient light from the main street silhouetted a large human-shaped shadow through the lacy curtains.

Someone was trying to break in.

Shane!

Adrenaline flooded into her system and her heart raced, beating a frantic tattoo in her chest. JJ leapt out of the bed and headed straight out to Ethan, pleased for the first time in five nights to have him so close.

Had he not been here, she'd have defended herself to the death. God knew she'd fought tooth and nail last time Shane had attacked her, but JJ was far from foolhardy. She had a six-foot-four, broad-shouldered, muscly cop at her disposal and she sure as hell was going to use him!

"Ethan!" she hissed as she hurried towards him, flight and fright carrying her legs faster than they'd ever moved.

This time she barely noticed his chest, his abs or the long stretch of mostly naked solid thighs as she rounded the couch. All she noticed was that he was still sound asleep.

"Ethan," she hissed again, giving his arm a tug for good measure.

At another time JJ would have admired the fluid symmetry of muscles as Ethan came instantly awake. The way his abs crunched and his biceps bulged and his quads lengthened then contracted as he vaulted upright, his feet hitting the floor, instantly alert. "What's wrong?"

His whisper was harsh in the silence, loud enough to be heard above the boom of her pulse in her ears. "There's someone trying to get in my French doors," she said uncaring that her voice trembled.

Ethan swore, rising to his feet, all six-foot-four of tense, angry man. "Stay here," he commanded. "Don't move."

JJ nodded as she sank to the couch, her legs starting to shake now. She doubted very much whether she was capable of anything else. Ten years ago Shane had busted down her bedroom door—the one she'd never bothered to replace—and assaulted her because she'd refused to go back to him.

She had good reason to fear him.

It was with relief that she watched Ethan stalk to her room, tall and strong, a half-naked warrior. She was frightened, every muscle screwed tight but the residual warmth of his body held in the fabric beneath her thighs was comforting and she lay down along the length of the couch to absorb it all.

Ethan's adrenaline-sharpened gaze cut straight through the night to the looming shadow on the other side of the door a second or two before he heard the noise of what sounded like a lock being picked. Anger, white and hot, seared right through his gut. Memories of the beating JJ's ex had meted out all those years ago scalded like bile in the back of his throat and pure rage drove him towards the door.

How dare that piece-of-trash asshole come back for seconds.

Ethan's hands curled into fists as he reached for the door handle. His badge may prevent him from being able to beat Shane Gallagher to within an inch of his life, but he sure as hell was going to push _reasonable force_ to its absolute limit.

He yanked the door open, pulling the startled intruder inside. Then he grabbed the other man by the throat and rammed him hard against the unopened side of the French doors, holding him in place by brute strength and the horror of a ten-year-old memory.

"Son of a bitch," Ethan snarled as his prisoner struggled, flailing his arms and legs, his scruffy hair flying all round, obscuring his face.

A waft of alcohol hit Ethan square in the face as his prisoner protested. "Blimey mate, what the feck?"

Ethan frowned at the thick Irish accent. "Who the fuck are you?" he demanded as his prisoner stopped struggling and it became even more obvious it wasn't Shane. He let up the pressure on his neck slightly as the guy wheezed rum all over his face. "And why the fuck are you breaking in to JJ's room?"

"Breaking in?" the guy said indignantly. "Don't be an eejit. This is my room. I couldn't get my key to work!"

The overhead light suddenly came on. "Shamus?" JJ said.

Ethan turned his head as JJ entered the room, his pupils protesting the sudden brightness. "You know him?" he barked.

"Yes, let him go," she said hurrying towards him. "He's the Irish backpacker that checked in this afternoon. He's a _guest_ ," she said as she pulled at his hands.

Ethan resisted for a moment before easing up a little more, but refusing to let go entirely. "That still doesn't explain why he was trying to break into your room at two o'clock in the morning," Ethan growled.

"I wasn't breaking in," Shamus reiterated holding up a key. "The key wouldn't fit in the lock."

JJ folded her arms. "That's because this isn't your room, you wally." She snatched the key off him and held it up to show him the number one written in large print on the tag. "This is number four."

Shamus did his best to focus on the swinging tag through rum goggles. "Oh... so my room is..."

JJ nodded. "The other end of the veranda." She turned to Ethan and said, "Let him go."

Ethan did so begrudgingly and the Irishmen staggered a little from his sudden release and the effects of alcohol. "I'm sorry," he said slurring his words as Ethan held out an arm to steady him a little. "I really thought this was my room."

"It's fine," JJ assured and Ethan could hear the relief in her voice. "You want me to help you to your room?"

Ethan all but rolled his eyes. "I'll do that," he snapped. The woman was in nothing but a T-shirt that barely covered her ass and it was the middle of the freaking night. For all they knew Shane was behind this drunken fool's confusion.

And right now he was so charged on adrenaline, he wasn't sure what he'd do once he was alone with her.

## Chapter Eight

Shamus wasn't happy about being frogmarched to his room but Ethan wasn't in any mood to indulge him, even if he was one of the pub's paying customers. He was edgy and tense from the surge of testosterone that had jettisoned into his system.

Between having Shane Gallagher back in town and Delia's custody threats, his patience was stretched to the limits. Add to that his recent slip with JJ and things were about as fucked up as they came.

He took a couple of moments, after he'd seen a profusely apologising Shamus to bed, to find some calm. The night air was cool and he sucked in some deep breaths as he leaned on the railing overlooking the main street. The street he knew like the back of his hand. The street where he, Marcus, Jarrod and JJ had played as kids, running races between the pub and the police station. Where he'd first kissed Delia. Where his father had been knocked down and killed by a hit-and-run driver.

He breathed in. And out.

So many memories—good and bad. It was his street now. His duty to keep it safe. And he didn't take that lightly.

And where JJ was concerned he never would.

When he stepped back inside the French doors he felt calmer. JJ was sitting on the floor, hugging her knees, her back against the end of the bed as if she'd lost control of her legs after the drama was over and just slid to the ground. He sat down next to her stretching his legs out in front.

"You okay?" he asked, trying not to notice how much skin was exposed by her chosen position.

She nodded. "Thanks, yes. Sorry about the false alarm."

"No," he said and he caught and captured her gaze. "That's what I'm here for."

She looked at him for the longest time and then gave a self-deprecating laugh as she ran a hair through her loose brown curls. "I'll be jumping at shadows next."

He grabbed her hand. "You're shaking," he said and he tucked it into his, holding it between his palms, rubbing it absently.

"Reaction," she said. "I've just been thinking about that night..." she snatched her hand back.

Ethan had too. The image of her in the hospital always at the back of his mind. "I wish I'd been there for you that night."

She gave a half-hearted laugh. "So do I."

He shut his eyes, guilt running a spike through his chest. Guilt that he hadn't been there when she'd needed him, guilt that she never blamed him.

"I can't bear the thought of what he did to you." He lifted a hand that was also less than steady and brushed it across her eye, down the slope of her cheekbone remembering the ugly bruising.

"Hey," she said softly. "What happened wasn't your fault."

Ethan nodded. He knew that—rationally. But he'd known that Shane had pushed JJ and shoved her against a wall only two weeks before that. He'd helped her move her stuff to the pub an hour later. "I should have been more vigilant."

Maybe if he'd escorted Shane out of town, instead of just threatening him with bodily harm if he didn't clear out, JJ wouldn't have ended up in the hospital, Shane's fist marks all over her face.

He stroked a finger over her eye, the one Shane had blackened. Her eyelashes were soft against his thumb pad, as was the skin covering her cheekbone. The same cheekbone that had shattered like an eggshell beneath the back of her ex's hand.

God, she was beautiful. Why hadn't he ever noticed that before?

"You weren't to know," JJ whispered. "I didn't think he'd come back and do that. I had no idea he was capable of..."

She stopped as his thumb stroked lower to her mouth and he ran it over the top lip near the corner where it had swelled and split courtesy of Shane's knuckles. Her mouth was so sweet, so perfect. He remembered how it had tasted the other night. How it had opened and given without question.

"Ethan," she whispered.

The movement of her mouth was mesmerising. His pulse thudded hard in his chest as the need to kiss her mouth, to assure himself that the ugly image of it being shattered and swollen was only in his head. That she was safe. That he _would_ protect her.

He just wanted to be sure.

To know.

But the second he pressed his lips to hers, and she whimpered and opened to him, it became more than that. The thud behind his ribs became a roar and his senses filled with the taste and the smell and the sound of her, and he needed more.

He needed all of her.

He reached for her, pulling her up and over him until she was straddling his lap, her kisses deep, greedy, sucking away all his air. Her breasts flat against his chest, her hips grinding against his, rubbing hard along his erection. Making him feel good, making him feel needy, making him want more.

He groaned and bucked up into her. And when she sucked in her breath and moaned in appreciation he swallowed it whole, plundering her mouth, demanding all of her, wanting her tongue and her sighs and her deep, wet whimpers.

The hard jut of her nipples grazed his chest and he _needed_ to touch them. To taste them. His hands skated up under her shirt. Her skin was warm and real. So was the dip of her waist, the ridges of her ribs and, finally, the warm naked swing of soft breast and hard nipple.

She cried out, her hips bucking as he brushed a thumb over the turgid peak and he muttered, "Fuck, I want you," against her mouth.

"Yes," she said and arched her back, pushing herself into his palm, begging with her body, telling him what she wanted.

And he was about to do just that. Push her on her back, throw caution to the wind. Do what they both wanted. Give in to this crazy thing happening between them. But a loud crash right beside them had him rearing up, displacing her as he leapt to his feet, body on high alert, the cop inside going into combat mode.

It took a few seconds to compute that the French door had slammed shut. His rocketing heart rate dropped down a few notches and he ran a hand through his hair as he realised how close he'd come to doing the very thing he'd insisted only a few nights ago never happen again.

Realised how badly he ached just to do it anyway.

He looked down at her, her chest heaving, her mouth wet and lush from their kisses, a lock of hair falling in her eye, a look of confusion that just about undid him.

"I'm sorry, I..."

What? What, idiot? What can you possibly say to explain this?

"That shouldn't have happened. I—"

"Don't," she interrupted, glaring at him with wounded eyes, her voice unsteady as she drew up her knees and pulled her T-shirt down over the top of them, right down to her ankles. "Just don't." She looked at the floor, hugging her knees hard. "Go back to bed, Ethan."

"But I—"

"Ethan," she said, her head snapping up, her voice strident. "Get out. Just go."

For a moment he was torn. She looked hurt and angry and wretched and worn out and it was all because of him. Hell, she looked like she was either going to get her gun and shoot him or burst into tears. And JJ never cried. Not even when her face had been a black-and-purple mess after Shane's beating.

But what could he say to make it better? He didn't understand any of this.

Was she angry at him for kissing her?

For stopping?

Or was she merely frightened and this was reaction setting in?

He didn't know. He just didn't know.

He felt helpless. And, if it wasn't for the giant erection inside his boxers, he'd also feel completely impotent.

So he did the only thing he could do—exactly what she wanted. "I'm sorry," he said and turned and walked away.

An hour later JJ was still lying awake in the dark, the street lights from outside casting their usual milky pall inside the room. She rolled to the other side again, the bed springs sounding like clanging chimes of doom in the quiet, chronicling her sexual frustration.

She was burning up. She had a fever that was off the charts and it was all Ethan's fault. For touching her face like that. Looking at her mouth like that. Kissing her lips like that.

Stoking the low burn of flame, which had been building for days, to a raging freaking inferno.

The throb between her legs had become a wild primal pulse, demanding release. She couldn't think of anything else as her body demanded fulfilment. To be touched and stroked and filled until the tension coiling tighter and tighter snapped, arcing through her, white and hot and sharp like the crack of a whip.

She sure as hell couldn't go back to sleep.

And she'd been doing so well. Ignoring the demands of her body as the sexual strain of their cohabitation built. Determined not to take the easy way out. To leave a fully charged Dennis in his drawer. To tough it out like a grown woman, not a horny teenager.

But damn it, she didn't start this tonight. She hadn't asked him to haul her into his lap or kiss her or fondle her breasts. She hadn't forced the _I want you_ out of his mouth. She hadn't been in control of his lips or his hips or his hands.

But she had been a willing participant.

She rolled back to her other side as the images of their frantic passion undulated through her head and stroked hot urgent fingers across her belly. Undiluted lust surged into her veins, mixing with the primal beat of her heart to form a wild sexual cocktail. Making her drunk. Making her edgy.

_Christ!_ He couldn't start something like that, drop a match on ground so tinder dry and combustible from neglect and years of dry spells, and then just walk away with a _sorry_ as she burned right in front of him.

Her gaze fell on her bedside drawers.

_Screw it._ If Ethan wasn't going to see it through then she would.

She yanked the top drawer open and felt around for Dennis, finding his firm silicone length within seconds. She wrapped her fingers around the veined girth. It wasn't ideal. It wasn't hard _male_ flesh. It wasn't Ethan. It wasn't the man she loved. But she needed to do something or she was going to stalk out to the couch and truly disgrace herself.

JJ pulled Dennis out of the drawer, testing the settings as she impatiently kicked the top sheet off. Her hands were trembling and she was so freaking hot as her heart rate trebled, burning like wildfire through her veins.

She didn't care that, with no bedroom door, Ethan could walk in on her and see everything. Hell, at the moment she couldn't have cared less if the entire pub had bought front-row tickets and hot-buttered popcorn. She just needed to do this.

To get it done.

She needed to release the tension. Take the edge off. And then maybe it would stop taking over her entire freaking life. Leave her able to concentrate on other things.

She lifted her hips and pushed her underwear down, used her feet to push her pants all the way off, the scrap of white cotton just too hot against her fevered skin. She drew her knees up then let them flop to the side, her thighs spreading open.

Her heart pounding in her ears JJ reached down, steadied the vibrator against the aching flesh between her legs and pushed it inside her. She gasped as it sank quickly to the hilt, easily lubricated by juices flowing hot and free. She gasped again as the clitoral massager furrowed through the slick seam, parting her, hitting its mark with pleasurable precision.

She paused for a moment, trying to steady the thud of her heart, which bounded through her head and ears with all the power of a sonic boom. It would not look good tomorrow if Ethan found her stroked out on the bed, a hot-pink vibrator called Dennis her cause of death.

When she felt steadier, she reached down again and flicked the switch on to the top power setting. An involuntary whimper escaped her mouth as sensitised tissues practically convulsed from the sudden sensation and she bit into her bottom lip to stop herself from crying out at the torturous friction.

She shut her eyes, willing herself to relax. It had been so damn long and she'd been holding herself so tense for the last few days she'd never uncoil at this rate. She breathed in, deep and slow through her nose, and let it gently escape from her mouth. She forced her hands, scrunched into fists beside her, to relax. Willed her buttocks to settle further into the mattress. Allowed her thighs to loosen and fall completely apart.

She hissed under her breath as the slow deep prod of the vibrator, angled to hit just the right spot, started to work its magic on her. It wasn't the varied buck and thrust of a man but as she was all set to explode, JJ didn't think her vagina was going to be that fussy.

She concentrated on the clitoral attachment whirring and vibrating in the general vicinity. It had slipped from its initial perfect position and JJ squirmed and shifted a little, angling her hips, seeking a better position. After a few seconds the stars seemed to align and she groaned under her breath as both the inside and outside movements hit their mark a little better.

She slid her hands up under her shirt, pushing it right up to her neck, exposing her flushed skin to the cool air. Her nipples ruched in response and her internal muscles tightened. JJ ran her fingers lightly over the tight tips and her belly clenched.

She whimpered a little.

Yes. Yes.

Images rose in her mind and drenched her fantasy in the heady scent of reality. In Ethan. Touching and licking and sucking her breasts. Grazing his teeth against the nipples. Making them hurt _so damn good_.

JJ pinched and rolled her nipples between her fingers. The stimulus caused a delicious friction deep inside her and she muffled a gasp.

She was close, so close.

And she wanted it now, damn it. Wanted it yesterday. Wanted it _five_ bloody nights ago.

But it just wasn't enough. She needed more. She needed him. Here with her. Touching her breasts, buried inside her. She tossed her head from side to side at the frustration of it all, her eyes fluttering open.

And her gaze connected with Ethan's.

Her breath caught in her throat, her hands froze on her breasts. He was watching her, and in that split second of silent communication she knew _he knew_ he'd been spotted.

Her immediate reaction was to launch herself for the sheet, cover herself. But there was just something about his stillness, his intensity, that stopped her.

Like he wasn't even breathing.

He was standing in the doorway, his shoulder shoved against the jamb, his chest bare, his arms hanging loosely by his sides. And even though his dark eyes were cloaked by the night, she could feel them on her, watching her. Feel them stroke across her breasts. Fan down her belly. Settle between her legs.

She sucked in a breath at his boldness, his voyeurism. Her nipples tightened unbearably as her pelvic muscles tingled and clamped around the hardness nestled inside.

His gaze wandered back up her body and zeroed in on hers, holding it. He held it as he pushed off the doorjamb and prowled towards her, slow and steady. Held it as he stood looking down at her, not saying a word. Held it as he sat on the bed beside her.

And there was no embarrassment there, no shame. Just naked male appreciation. Lust. Desire. Sex.

The tingle intensified.

"Ethan," she whispered, unable to bear the weight of his silence. "I—"

"Shh," he whispered, interrupting her.

And then his head was lowering—oh so slowly—his mouth inching steadily towards hers. When his lips touched hers the tingling became extreme and when his hands pushed hers aside to fondle her breasts, stroke the nipples, it became a freaking tsunami of sensation so sharp and sweet she wasn't even in her body anymore.

And between the buzz and prod and rub of the vibrator and the touch and taste and smell of him infusing her senses she shattered into a thousand pieces in one cataclysmic second.

She could vaguely hear herself crying out a primal bellow against his lips, which opened greedily. She wrenched her mouth away as her body bucked and writhed, because she just couldn't get enough air, and he placed his forehead on hers, his hands still on her breasts, squeezing and kneading and stroking.

"Yes," he whispered as she whimpered and clawed at his arms. "God, yes..."

The orgasm tugged and pulled at her relentlessly, tossing and turning her until she didn't know which way was up. But he was there with her, whispering words of encouragement and she clung to his arms, anchoring herself in the maelstrom.

And even as it abated, the urgent waves coursing through her body slowly releasing her from their grip, he stayed, his forehead on hers, telling her it was okay, hushing her, soothing her. Kissing her lightly on the eyelids, the cheek, the mouth.

He stayed kissing and murmuring until her breathing was normal and her pulse had settled. Until the very last twinge had died away. He even flicked the vibrator off and pulled it out. And instead of the usual empty, dissatisfied feeling after a session with Dennis she felt utterly sated and somehow more empowered, more female than she'd ever been.

And then he was standing, turning, leaving and she wanted to tell him not to. To stop. To turn around. To come back. Lay with her. Hold her.

But tiredness—overwhelming tiredness—pushed deep into her marrow and she could barely lift her head off the bed let alone talk. And then he was gone and she barely had enough energy to pull up the sheet before she plunged head first into the sleep of the deeply sexually satisfied.

## Chapter Nine

Ethan was woken by the sound of the shower starting up the next morning. He glanced through bleary eyes at his watch.

Six-thirty.

He'd lain awake until at least five, images of JJ playing like an old movie reel in his head—touching herself, letting him watch, crying out against his mouth as she'd come.

Impossible to sleep with all that going on in his head. When he had a hard-on that wouldn't let up.

His dick stirred again and he sat up to distract it, swinging his legs over the edge. His back protested where a particularly persistent couch lump had jabbed him in the kidney all night long, but he was grateful for something else to focus on.

Something other than a wet, naked JJ.

He rubbed his hand through his hair, groaning under his breath as he jerked his mind out of JJ's shower.

How were they ever going to get this back in the bag?

Because it had to go back. It had to. Lust and sex and libido were all well and good, but when it all went wrong what was left then?

Another woman who couldn't stand the sight of him? Who spent her nights sticking pins in some policeman Ken-doll look-alike? Who was either shrieking at him or screwing around behind his back, trying to fuck up his life in every way possible?

No. He knew JJ wouldn't be like that.

But there were worse things. Like some awful kind of strained co-existence, never again to return to the ease and comfort of days gone by. To be able to just plonk himself down at the bar and shoot the breeze. Or to drop by and pick her up when he and Connie went out to the springs. Or to bring her home a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts—plain glazed—on his infrequent trips to Brisbane.

He shuddered at the thought.

JJ had made his transition to small-town cop bearable. When Delia's pregnancy had ended his dreams of becoming a big-city, hotshot detective she'd been the only one he'd been able to talk to about it. Just like she'd been the only one in high school he'd been able to talk to about Delia.

And she'd known just when to let him wallow and when to pull him up by the bootstraps.

Good cop, bad cop. That was JJ.

The taps shut off and Ethan reached for his jeans, climbing into them. It was possible to put it back, he told himself as he headed to the kitchen and the coffee.

It had to be.

A couple of minutes later he was staring out the window, absently stirring a coffee when he sensed rather than heard JJ's presence. He took a moment to find his centre before he turned around, to prepare himself for what had to be said.

He picked up her mug and turned, a smile firmly in place. "Morning," he said, passing her the coffee.

And he tried really hard to not think about her lying on her bed last night, naked, legs spread, fondling her breasts.

But failed miserably.

She was all scrubbed and clean, in standard jeans and a T-shirt, her hair hanging in damp curls round her face, not a single scrap of make-up. But all he saw was her naked and pleasuring herself as the wild aroma of aroused woman, still in his head from last night, obliterated the smells of clean woman—soap, shampoo and toothpaste.

JJ murmured a thank you, her gaze not quite reaching his, as she accepted the cup and bowed her head over it, blowing on the milky liquid. She took a sip, but Ethan could still see her cheeks going a cute shade of pink. It was only brief though, completely gone when she raised her head a couple of moments later, visibly squaring her shoulders as she eyed him.

"About last night..."

Ethan held up his hand to halt her. "No. Let me go first."

She shook her head. "No. You see—"

"No," he interrupted again. "I appreciate that this is a... awkward topic but I have to say something first. So please just let me say it and then you can have at it."

She regarded him with solemn eyes but nodded her approval. "Fine."

"I'm sorry about the... watching thing last night. I hope you don't think I stand in your doorway every night perving on you." Although if she did _that_ every night it could be something he could get used to. "I was lying awake and I could hear you tossing and turning and I just wanted to... I don't know, talk to you about what had happened and then you were..."

Touching yourself. Enjoying yourself.

Getting. It. On.

JJ swallowed, clearly uneasy. "Yes. About... that—"

"No. I don't need to know about that. I don't care about it. I just... couldn't stop watching. I couldn't look away..."

She bowed her head again to cover her cheeks warming again. He'd never seen her blush this much in her life—not that he could blame her. Talking about what had happened, what he'd witnessed, was making him squirm too. He doubted he'd be showing his face so soon had it been her who had sprung him with his hand on it.

"I'm sorry," he said to her downcast head. "I don't want to embarrass you."

JJ snorted and looked at him. "You embarrass _me_? You weren't the one caught in flagrante with a... sex toy."

"It's okay, JJ," he frowned. "You think I'm going to judge you over that? I know you have... needs. And I didn't exactly help defuse the situation between us last night when I kissed you..."

"Damn right," she muttered, hugging her coffee to her chest and Ethan was left in no doubt that his actions had been, in some way, the catalyst for hers.

"I'm sorry," he said again.

JJ looked at him impatiently. "It's fine. It's just been..." She paused for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip as if she was weighing up her words. "... A really, _really_ long time for me. And what with the... sex and the kissing and the... near sex, I thought it would... you know... take the edge of a little..."

Ethan held up his hand again. JJ stumbling over her words was not making the conversation any more comfortable.

"It's okay, trust me, I know all about taking the edge off. I'm a single father _and_ a cop in a small town. I pretty much have _no_ life and certainly no-one to take the edge off for me. So I get it."

She nodded and returned her gaze to her coffee, her bare big toe tracing patterns on the lino beneath her feet, obviously still finding eye contact difficult. He knew how she felt. Being an adult didn't necessarily make having adult conversations easy.

"Still," she said after a moment or two, peeking a look at him from under her fringe. "I didn't mean for you to... become... involved."

Ethan shrugged. "Well I did owe you one," he said, trying to lighten the horribly embarrassing subject matter. "And you looked like you were having so much fun." JJ cringed at his joke and he chuckled. "Too early?"

"Oh God, Ethan, I don't know if I'm going to be ready to joke about this for a while."

"Fair enough."

"In fact, I think if we _never_ mentioned it again it would be too soon."

He saluted with his free hand, a small smile on his mouth. "Roger that."

She returned his smile with a relief-laced one of her own and it was the first time she'd looked at him like the old JJ. The one he had never caught in flagrante with a vibrator.

"I think, going forward, it might be handy for us to make some ground rules, though. Shane is still hanging around and in just over a week Connie will be back. We have much bigger things to worry about now. We have to leave all that stuff behind us and get ourselves back on track."

A small frown knitted JJ's brows together. "Okay..."

Ethan paused. "Problem?"

"Do you think we can... get back on track?"

"Absolutely," he nodded. They _had_ to.

JJ frowned again and his belly clenched. She had to be on board with this. "We seem to have crossed a lot of lines these last few days..."

Ethan put his mug on the sink and folded his arms across his chest. "I know that," he said. "But I don't think we've come too far to uncross them."

"You... don't?"

No. _They can't have._ "Not if we say we haven't."

"Okay."

Confusion coloured her voice. Did she want something else? Did she think last night was the beginning of a thing between them?

_God._ He couldn't do that. Not with JJ. He wouldn't risk losing such a close friend if things went pear-shaped.

"Look... JJ, before all this," he waved his hand back and forth between the two of them, "we had a good life. We've been friends for thirty years—our mothers were friends. They used to push us in our prams to the park together every day. Those kind of connections don't come along often. Do you seriously want to blow all that history by bonking each other's brains out for however long that lasts?"

Although, Ethan had to admit, from the small taste he'd experienced so far, there were worse ways he could spend his time than in bed with JJ.

"But, we've already gone there, haven't we?" she said. "We've... tasted the fruit so to speak. The history is already blown, don't you think?"

"No, see, that's just it," he said, warming to the subject matter. "That's just sex. Just a couple of... slips. That's ground that can easily be regained. But if we go down the other path towards... feelings, it'll be too far to come back then. And what happens when it doesn't work out and then you and I become Delia and I? Christ, JJ..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I can only cope with one Delia in my life."

And that there was the crux of it, JJ thought. He was still so poisoned by Delia and her death by a thousand cuts that he was ruined for all other women. JJ knew better than anyone how deeply Delia had hurt him over the years. And how that hurt had sworn him off relationships for life. But he should know that whatever happened between them she would never be a Delia.

"I can't be the _boyfriend_ , JJ," Ethan said and she could hear the desperation in his voice. "I don't know how to do that. Not anymore. Nor do I have the time or the energy. I have Connie to think of—she's always been my number one priority. And if I have a custody battle to prepare for..."

JJ forced a smile even though her heart was breaking, as all the crazy glue she'd used over the years to keep sticking it back together dissolved in a puddle of warm goo. Those pieces were never going to go back together and she resigned herself to the fact that she would always be a little bit broken.

Because he was right—there were more important priorities than her and them and what they'd done.

Connie would always be a priority for Ethan and that was just one of the things she loved about him.

"Of course," she reassured, the smile on her face feeling stiff and unnatural. "Of course. Ground rules, huh? Let's hear them."

"Well, clearly we can't... be intimate again."

JJ nodded. "Clearly."

Any other time she'd have found Ethan's choice of word hilarious. Normally he would have been blunter and simply said no more fucking. It was an obvious sign of his unease and discomfort but she liked that _intimate_ elevated what they'd done above everyday, common, down-and-dirty sex fuelled by alcohol and desperation between two people who should know better.

_Intimate_ conjured connection and, despite the down and dirty-ness of it, they had connected.

"So... no sex. Which means no touching, no kissing, no lusty sideways glances."

Ethan checked each point off a finger as if they were federal offences instead of mere sexual misdemeanours. It drew attention to the fine musculature of his arms and JJ immediately transgressed. How could she possibly not go the quick perve when he wandered around her home with no shirt on and oozing enough testosterone to keep her in a permanent sexual stupor?

Even now his naked chest and the way his jeans fit his hips beckoned to be explored. There was so much of him she hadn't touched with their two rather frenetic couplings.

And now she never would.

"I'll stick with the couch and—"

"You know you can just go home, right?" JJ interrupted. Being a couple may just be easier from a distance. Where his abs and testosterone couldn't seduce her. "I'm sure Shane got the message loud and clear, and he's not going to do anything to get into trouble again so soon after his parole. Even Shane's not that dumb."

Ethan eyed her with his uncompromising cop gaze. "No."

JJ knew better than to argue when Ethan got that look. Lacey called it his don't-fuck-with-me look. And, if she was honest with herself, it was a relief to have him watching out for her. Sure, she was fiercely independent—but she wasn't stupid. Not since Shane had shattered her previously unshaken sense of security with his fists, anyway.

Did she honestly think that Shane would be a problem? No. But she couldn't discount the prickle at the back of her neck that had taken up permanent residence since her ex had waltzed into town.

Rule number four, however, might be difficult to uphold given that she'd been perving on Ethan Weston for pretty much the entirety of her natural life.

"So, as I was saying," he continued. "I'm going to keep my butt on the couch unless you have another unexpected nocturnal visitor, and we keep the public displays of affection to an absolute minimum."

JJ remembered the kiss he'd laid on her in front of everyone in the bar the other night. She had to agree to that. PDAs were only going to screw with her ability to keep the other ground rules.

Ethan rested his ass against the sink and curled his fingers around the edges either side of his hips, emphasising the broadness of his chest and shoulders and the way they narrowed down to the very fascinating area behind his fly.

"Would you like to add anything?"

JJ gripped her mug harder. _No lusty glances. No lusty glances._ God, he was so damn casual and clear-headed after last night and she felt completely on the back foot, as her brain was hijacked by hormones.

"Yes, actually," she said, beating back the lust with a good dose of pissed off. "You really need to start wearing a shirt around here."

Ethan frowned a little at her request and looked down at his unclothed torso as if he was just realising he wasn't properly dressed.

He looked up. "You've seen me without a shirt a thousand times."

Yes, idiot, I have. _And each time I do I want to lick you a little bit more._

She folded her arms. "I'm a thirty-five-year-old woman in the prime of my sex drive. That _edge_ we took care of last night? It's going to build again pretty damn quick and you being shirtless is only going to... what do you cops say?... aid and abet."

"Oh...?"

JJ almost rolled her eyes at his confusion. Jesus, could the man really be that clueless? "Would _you_ like it if I pranced around here topless?"

JJ felt some satisfaction at the slow bob of his Adam's apple. "Point taken," he said.

"Good, let's make that ground rule five, then. No skin."

He nodded. "No skin."

And JJ tried to pretend there wasn't a little part of her that was supremely disappointed.

The time went by without any further incident. In fact they barely saw each other. Apart from an hour in the evening, after she finished work and before she fell into bed in her usual exhausted heap, they barely said a word to each other. Ethan was gone the moment she woke and pretty much seemed to keep out of her way, throwing the gossips only an occasional crumb or two to keep them happy.

True to his word, he'd kept his shirt on, hadn't kissed her again—not even in public—and had gone out of his way not to be close enough to touch her. And if there were any sideways lusty glances then they were all hers.

Ethan was, as per usual, in control.

Which made one of them. Because clothed or unclothed he was majorly irresistible.

Before JJ knew it, it was the night before Connie was due home and suddenly Ethan _did_ want to talk. The talk she knew they had to have, but she'd been trying not to think about.

He was waiting for her when she got in from the pub, with his serious-police-business face on. It was a mark of its seriousness that Ethan was sucking on a beer at two-thirty in the morning. Apart from sporadic Delia-induced drunkenness, Ethan wasn't much of a drinker. Even in social situations.

"Connie's home tomorrow afternoon," he said, no preamble, just straight to the point.

JJ nodded. "It'll be good to have her back."

"Yes."

JJ wasn't fooled by the brevity of his answer. Ethan and Connie had Skyped, texted and emailed and yesterday a postcard had arrived, but as a full-time Dad to Connie for virtually all her life, JJ knew that Ethan's understatement hid much deeper emotions.

She kicked off her shoes and headed for the kitchen and a coffee as Ethan took a swallow of his beer. "Shane's still in the area," he said to her back.

"I know," JJ said as she flicked on the jug. "Ron Williams was in tonight, he told me." The Williams farm was another sheep grazing property in the area.

"So you're going to need to move in with me. With us," he said as he moseyed over to the opposite side of the kitchen benchtop, bending at the waist to place his elbows atop it. "I don't want you here alone while he's within cooee."

JJ didn't want to be alone either, but the hole they were digging was certainly getting deeper. Now they were going to be dragging Connie into their deception too. "But moving...?"

"I can hardly uproot Connie from the only home she's ever known to move in here with you."

JJ nodded. "I know. I know."

"If you want to pack a bag I'll take it over to the house tomorrow sometime."

"What are we going to... tell her?"

"I've been thinking about that," he said.

JJ just bet he had. _This ought to be good._

"I think we tell her that we've had feelings for each other for a while, but we've been keeping it a secret because we didn't want anyone to know until we were sure."

He was looking at her for approval of his strategy but JJ was too frozen inside to respond for a moment. _If only that was true._

Talk about strumming her pain with his fingers.

"I don't know, Ethan. I don't like the idea of lying to her. She's a pretty smart kid, and this will be a pretty big deal for her."

Ethan gave a rueful grunt. "That she is. But she's also pretty easygoing and you've been in her life forever."

JJ wanted to disagree about the impact of such a huge change in his daughter's life, but Connie _was_ possibly _the_ most laid-back child she'd ever met—she took much more after her uncle Marcus than her father. That was partly her nature, partly her rearing in a house full of a large, noisy and loving extended family, but mostly the sense of security Ethan's calm constant presence in her life had always provided.

"Hell," Ethan continued, "you're like part of the furniture. I doubt she'll bat an eyelid."

JJ shouldn't have felt the off-hand remark as such a body blow, but she did. _Good old JJ_ —just like the ancient old squatter's chairs that sat on the Weston's shady veranda overlooking their backyard.

She pushed the hurt aside to stay on task. "And what do we tell her when Shane goes and the custody thing is settled and she's used to you and me?"

JJ didn't want to think about that.

Not about the potential fallout or the time frame on their _relationship_.

"We cross that bridge when we get to it."

Right. As simple as that. Typical Ethan—not borrowing trouble.

"I don't have to tell you how us living together will look much better for any custody proceedings," he continued. "Knowing there's a stable female influence in the same house will be a huge tick in the box for a family court."

"I know. And you know that Connie staying with you is my priority too, right?"

He nodded. "I do. Thank you."

Ethan's sincerity was palpable, so JJ moved on to an even bigger hurdle as she poured the boiling water into her mug. "So... the sleeping arrangements...?"

"Ah... well... I've been thinking about that too..."

Probably not half as much as she had! "And?"

"We need, for Connie's sake, for this to look like a real relationship. If this was just about Shane then you could set up in the spare room and nobody would know. But if Delia were to question Connie too carefully about our living arrangements..."

"It's all over red rover," JJ murmured.

"Yes."

"So we'll be... in the same room?" She couldn't quite bring herself to say, _your_ room.

"In the same bed, actually. Connie occasionally still comes in for a morning cuddle, so it would be odd if I weren't in my bed. It would be odder still if you weren't there with me."

JJ nodded, trying to control the sudden hitch in her breathing. "I guess." She tried to imagine sleeping right next to him, night after night and _not_ reaching for him.

"It's okay," he assured, placing the half-empty beer bottle on the kitchen bench. "We'll just stick to our ground rules and it'll be fine."

JJ couldn't decide if she was relieved or insulted that Ethan thought sharing a bed would be _easy._ "Okay."

She must have sounded doubtful because he gave her one of his stern-cop looks, like he'd just caught her necking at Hobson's Crossing and was about to give her one of his perils-of-making-out-in-public speeches he was well known for among the town's high schoolers.

Like he'd never taken Delia there...

"We're not teenagers with out-of-control hormones, JJ," he said.

JJ blinked. _Speak for yourself._

"We _can_ make this work. We just have to keep an eye on the endgame, that's all."

_All?_ JJ was damn sure it wasn't that clear cut. For her, anyway. But maybe it was for him. He was a man after all, and they didn't get all hung up about sex. He _had_ been freaked out about what had happened between them but maybe, in that typically male way of his, he'd managed to put it away in a neat little box.

And then he said something that was guaranteed to make her putty in his hands. "Please, JJ. I know I'm asking a lot, but I can't lose her."

JJ stirred her coffee, reaching for some breathing space. "Okay," she said, trying to keep it light as her heart squeezed painfully in her chest. "But I'm packing Dennis as well."

He frowned slightly, like Dennis bothered him. _Good_. He couldn't expect to share a bed with her _and_ insist on keeping it all platonic and expect her to be a freaking nun into the bargain.

Not that she had any intention of using Dennis. But Ethan didn't have to know that.

He held up his hands in surrender. "Whatever gets you through it."

"Good," she said picking up her mug and heading for her bedroom. "I'll have the bag ready to go in the morning."

Ethan snagged her arm as she brushed past and heat slid into all her secret places. "Thank you," he said. "You don't know how much this means to me."

"Yes, I do," she said before breaking away to the sanctuary of her room.

Because his happiness meant everything to her.

## Chapter Ten

"Daddy!"

Ethan's heart just about exploded out of his chest as an excited Connie, complete with beret, flew up the front path. He met her on the bottom of the six steps that led to the wrap-around veranda, absorbing the impact of her slight body as she barrelled into him. She flung her skinny arms around his waist and buried her face in his stomach.

He shut his eyes as his arms enveloped her shoulders. When she'd left for two weeks he'd felt like she'd taken a huge chunk of his heart. Hugging her close, it felt whole again.

"I missed you so much," he said, leaning down to drop a kiss on her head, conscious that Delia was watching the display from a couple of metres back.

Her muffled, "I missed you too," was sweet, sweet music to his ears.

"How was Paris?" he asked.

Connie pulled away and grinned at him. He'd missed those cute freckles. But somehow they seemed out of place with the chic little fringed bob—just like her mother's—she was now sporting and the latest in Parisian millinery. "Paris rocks. And when I'm eighteen, I'm going to live there and be a street artist and wear a beret all the time."

Ethan smiled down at her and hugged her a little closer, quelling the urge to say _over my dead body_ , thinking about all those French men, known for their horniness, with designs on his baby girl. "Sounds wonderful," he enthused for her benefit.

Connie gave him another hug before her attention wandered to the little crowd standing on the veranda behind her father. Jarrod and Selena, Marcus and Juanita, Lacey and Coop.

And JJ.

She ran up the three steps straight into Jarrod's embrace and Ethan was once again beset with the feeling of wholeness. Connie was back in the bosom of her family and it felt right. He caught JJ's gaze and he smiled.

"I thought you'd both be working," Connie said as she moved on to spread the love to Marcus.

"No way," Marcus said, picking her up and spinning her around. "We're your welcome home party, kiddo. Love your haircut."

Connie giggled as he set her down. "JJ," she did an excited little hop before hugging her. "I'm so glad you're here. I have sooo much to tell you about Paris!"

"Where else would she be," Delia muttered under her breath, just loud enough for Ethan to hear it.

He turned to Delia. "Everything went well?" he asked, forcing himself to be his usual polite self with Delia.

No matter how much she'd emasculated him over the years, he had been scrupulously civil in his dealings with her. He'd seen his share of deadbeat dads in his job and he knew the sure-fire way to alienate yourself from your kid was to disrespect their mother.

As Delia had rarely been around, he hadn't found that too difficult. But he had a feeling his resolve was going to be well and truly tested in the coming months. Already he wanted to chip her over Connie's haircut. His daughter had always been more interested in catching tadpoles at the creek than her hair and had rarely paid heed to any kind of style.

But this sleek sophisticated bob had matured her dramatically. He'd sent his little girl away for two weeks and she'd become a young woman.

"It was wonderful," Delia said and Ethan wanted to barf at the breathy, girly way she gushed.

He glanced towards the veranda where Connie was trying out the French she'd learned on Juanita, who was fluent in four languages.

He returned his attention to Delia. "I got your note," he said quietly.

Delia nodded. "I mean it, Ethan. I don't want to cause trouble for you, but a girl Connie's age needs her mother."

Ethan bit down hard on his _Connie has always needed a mother_ rebuke. "I've never kept her from you," he murmured, his voice light and even.

"I know. But I'm back now and I'm back for good. I want her with me permanently."

"And does it matter what Connie wants?" he enquired softly.

Delia's jaw tightened. "Connie, baby," she said, looking away from him. "I have to go now. Come give me a hug."

Connie ran back to her mother. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," she said squeezing Delia hard around her waist. "I had _the best_ time."

Delia smiled down at her daughter and fiddled with the beret to get it at just the right angle. "There's more where that came from," she said as she dropped a kiss on Connie's nose. "I'll talk to you during the week."

Connie nodded then ran back up the stairs. Ethan watched as she slipped one arm around Lacey's waist and the other around JJ's as they walked into the house.

"You'll be hearing from my lawyer on Monday," Delia said, dragging Ethan's attention back to her. The steel in her voice left Ethan in no doubt that it was no empty threat.

"It doesn't have to be like this, Delia. I'm sure we could sit down and hammer out something."

He didn't want this to become something long and nasty and damaging for Connie. His daughter felt safe and loved and cherished and he didn't want that threatened.

"Start it off slow, ease Connie into the idea of two separate households... something that suits us both. Then maybe we can build up to shared custody over the course of a year or so. Let things evolve naturally."

Delia shook her head. "No."

Her glossy blonde bob moved with her head and Ethan was struck by how much more artificial she looked compared to JJ. They were the same age and yet Delia's heavy make-up aged her.

"You've had her for fourteen years, Ethan, it's my turn."

Ethan gritted his teeth. "She's not some possession that's been on loan, Delia. She's a child."

"Yes." Another emphatic nod. " _My_ child."

And with that she turned away, her heels tapping on the concrete as she headed for her sleek BMW. Ethan shook his head. If Delia thought he was just going to let her walk all over him again, she had another thing coming.

Ethan had made Connie's favourite meal—lasagne—and they all sat around the kitchen table as it cooked, filling the kitchen with Italy as Connie, still in her beret, showed them all her photos from Paris. She was as high as a kite, bubbling with the excitement of it all.

"Aren't you supposed to be jet-lagged?" Marcus asked.

"Nah," Connie said. "Mum says there's no such thing as jet lag in business class."

Marcus laughed. "Oh, la-di-da, pardon me."

" _Pardon moi,"_ Juanita chimed in and Connie giggled.

Ethan rose to his feet. "Are you hungry? The lasagne should be ready."

" _Staaarving,_ " Connie said, leaping up to set the table as she did every night.

"You're always starving," Lacey quipped.

She opened the cutlery drawer and counted out knives and forks. "Are you staying too, JJ?"

JJ flicked a quick glance at Ethan who was slicing up the lasagne. "Sure am."

Connie grabbed the extra cutlery. "How come you aren't working tonight either? Saturday's your busiest night, isn't it?"

JJ laughed. She'd told Connie that years ago, when Connie had lamented why JJ couldn't have a sleepover with her. "I took the night off. Couldn't miss out on my favourite girl's homecoming meal."

Connie took the answer at face value, and within minutes they were tucking into lasagne and home-made garlic bread that could easily have been served in any Italian restaurant.

Ethan wasn't much of a cook—his mother had been an excellent chef and done most of the cooking when she'd been alive—but over the course of her two-year illness everyone had stepped up and between the four of them, they'd all managed to perfect a couple of dishes.

"Mmm, this is good," a bereted Connie said around a half-full mouth. Normally there was a rule about hats at the dining table, but Ethan had made an exception tonight.

"Better than business class, right?" Marcus joked.

" _The_ best," she agreed repeating her current favourite phrase.

Ethan glanced at JJ. She usually enjoyed his lasagne as much as Connie, but she was the only one not eating with gusto, and he knew it was because she was nervous about how things would go down when they told Connie.

No time like the present, with the entire family around them legitimising everything.

He put his knife and fork down and watched as his daughter all but shovelled the food into her mouth like she was a strapping young guy instead of a fourteen-year-old girl with a beret perched atop her head at a jaunty angle. "Actually Connie, there's something that JJ and I want to tell you."

"Uh huh," Connie said, her eyes not leaving her plate.

"It's kind of important," he said.

Connie looked up at him, her tongue licking at the meat sauce plastered around her mouth, a little frown between her brows. "What's wrong?"

She had the same note in her voice she'd had the day he'd taken her hand and told her her grandmother was slipping away and she needed to say goodbye now. Say goodbye to the woman she'd spent every day of her life with since they'd come back to live in the Weston home when she'd been two.

_Damn Delia for forcing his hand_.

"Nothing's _wrong_ ," he smiled. "It's good news," he said reaching across to take JJ's hand. " _Great_ news." He gave the hand a squeeze.

Connie's brow furrowed at the action. She looked at her father then at JJ. Then she looked at Jarrod who was the family barometer. He nodded and smiled.

"JJ and your father are getting hitched," Marcus announced, jumping in.

"Marcus!" Ethan said in exasperation.

"What? You were terrifying the poor girl, for crying out loud."

Ethan caught Juanita's eye briefly. He knew she didn't approve of how they were going about this. That she couldn't just turn off being a psychologist. He just hoped her dire warnings about Connie feeling betrayed never came to fruition.

He glanced at his daughter. Her jaw had dropped—it seemed they'd temporarily managed to silence her. "Connie?"

"Really?" she asked, a smile spreading over her face, her eyes sparkling. "Is that really true?"

Ethan nodded. "Really."

"It's true," Lacey confirmed. "JJ's living here now. I've even caught them kissing."

Connie gave a little gasp then stood, her chair scraping back. "You're living here?" she asked JJ, her eyes shining. When JJ nodded, Connie flung herself into her father's arms again. "This is _the best_ ," she said into his neck, squeezing him hard, and relief swept through Ethan's system like a shot of JJ's overproof Jack.

Connie pulled away from his neck to look at JJ. "Can I be bridesmaid again, please? Oh please." And then she gave another little gasp and her eyes rounded. "Oh, does this mean I'm going to get a baby sister?" She looked at her father. "I've always wanted a sister. Although I suppose a brother would be okay?" Connie switched her attention to JJ. "Mum says she's too old to have any more kids, but you're not, are you JJ?"

Ethan swallowed. _Christ_. That question hadn't exactly been on his list of possible things his daughter might ask. Connie had _never_ mentioned wanting a sibling to him. For the first time since he'd assured JJ everything was going to be fine he felt a prickle of unease. He glanced at Juanita then at JJ and could see a corresponding discomfort on both their faces.

"Oh, they're going to have squillions," Marcus grinned, patently enjoying his older brother's discomfort, despite Juanita frowning at him.

"Cut it out, Marcus," Jarrod warned, his voice low but serious.

JJ didn't know what to say. One part of her was thankful for the egocentricities of fourteen-year-old girls who only really cared about party dresses and baby sisters. In a way they were easier things to talk about then the nitty-gritty details of how _in two wee_ ks she and Ethan had gone from life-long friends to shacking up and getting married.

"Well... er no, I'm not too old to have babies," JJ confirmed as Connie waited expectantly. Not exactly anyway. "But your Dad and I..."

What? What did she say? We're just faking it because your selfish-evil-princess mother wants to take you away to live with her? That it wasn't real?

Because the thought of having a baby, _having Ethan's baby_ , was, even now, unfurling roots that were burrowing into her consciousness. Filling her with possibilities.

Feeling very freaking real.

JJ blinked, shaking the idea off, dragging herself back to the real world and her fake fiancé. "It won't be... on our agenda for a while..."

Connie looked crestfallen and guilt swamped JJ with all the power of a tsunami. "But the bridesmaid thing... absolutely."

JJ still felt like a heel over the deception but at least Connie was grinning again. "This," Connie declared, "has been _the best_ two weeks of my life!"

And that was it, she sat back down and started eating again and talking about Paris, gabbing away safe and secure in her world, oblivious to JJ and Ethan's turmoil.

## Chapter Eleven

Ethan wasn't asleep when he heard JJ creep into the room hours later. He'd been lying awake for what seemed an age, waiting for this moment. Willing himself not to be. Willing himself to sleep. Willing himself to miss it. To no avail.

Going over and over the ground rules.

The minutes had ticked by in a red digital glow, mocking him. He couldn't decide what was worse—her avoiding him or joining him. He hadn't shared this bed with any female—apart from Connie—and the thought that he was about to with a fully grown one, no matter how artificial the reason, was both strange and thrilling.

Strange because it was JJ.

Thrilling because underneath it all he was still a man. One who'd now had a tiny forbidden taste of her. And damn if she wasn't one hundred per cent edible.

But that was bad. Thrilling was bad.

He'd assured her this would be fine. She hadn't believed him and now he understood her reservations.

Which was why he'd deliberately positioned himself right on the edge of the mattress with his back to the door. But he could still hear her open it, sense her looking at him for long moments as the shaft of light from the hallway fell across his body.

"Ethan?"

The whisper was loud in the silence but he squeezed his eyes shut and feigned sleep. He figured it might be easier for her to get in if she thought he was asleep. They sure as hell couldn't keep doing this—staying up late, going to bed separately, in an effort to spend as little time in the bed together as possible.

They'd both be zombies by week's end.

Still it seemed an age before the mattress dipped behind him. And another before the sheet pulled against his body as she slid under it. If they'd been a conventional couple he'd have acknowledged her presence. Rolled over, reached for her, tucked her in close.

But they weren't. So he kept his back firmly turned.

He could feel her eyes on him though, straight through the fabric of his T-shirt and coming to rest on his nape. She was close in the queen-size bed, he could sense it, her thoughts so loud in the stillness he could practically hear each one. _Wondering what the hell they were doing._

His eyes flicked open, his heart pounding in his chest. It resonated through his ears as he held his breath, waiting. What for he had no idea—for another whisper? A touch? Finally she shifted and he slowly, silently, let the breath out, the heat from her gaze broken.

But the gap between them yawned ever wider as he sensed her turning away, no doubt clinging to her edge of the mattress as he was to his, teetering on the line somewhere between vertigo and temptation. One direction the cold, hard floor, the other direction soft, warm woman.

Both unwelcome in their own ways.

Ethan shut his eyes. He was never going to sleep like this.

Yet, surprisingly, he did.

With JJ beside him where she was supposed to be, his hyper-vigilant body finally relaxed. The situation was still fucked up, but subconsciously he knew both JJ and Connie were safe—they were home—and everything was right with his world.

And if that meant spending months in the same bed with JJ, looking at her across a divide as fraught as the freaking DMZ, well, so be it. It was enough to know she was here—that Shane couldn't get to her. That his case for custody was stronger. He could live with the rather irrational urge to touch her.

This was JJ—he didn't touch JJ.

Except, apparently, at five-thirty in the morning when he woke to great big handfuls of her.

A warm leg was flung across his upper thighs, the knee nestling very close to a part of his anatomy that was perky as hell for half-past-stupid o'clock. He was conscious of the bareness of her thigh and the smoothness of her calf as his hand meandered up and down the length of her leg.

His eyes blinked open as he came suddenly awake and his hand froze. He turned his head to look at the woman attached to the leg, ready to apologise, his hand already lifting off her. But his intentions shattered at first glimpse.

She was rolled on her side facing him now. Early morning light filtered in through the window above the bed and fell so gently against her beautiful face that he lost his breath for a moment. Sooty eyelashes swept down in two decadent fringes, a dark curl fell partially across one eye and the slope of a cheekbone, her mouth was slightly parted as if waiting to be kissed.

Without conscious control, his hand returned to the warm contours of her leg as he looked his fill—resoundingly breaking rules two and four. The straightness of her nose, the soft vulnerability of her neck and the thud of the pulse that bounded there, the even rise and fall of her chest, the slight swell of cleavage as her skew-whiff T-shirt pulled taut across unfettered breasts.

She was soft and female and relaxed and utterly, utterly desirable.

His hand tightened on her leg as he fought the urge to close the distance between them, lift that curl off her eye and drop a kiss on her mouth. It seemed the irrational urge to touch her hadn't been magically quashed overnight. It was just a good thing her mouth was more distant than her leg.

While the bottom half of her body was snugly aligned with his, her pelvis angled towards him, the upper half had kept a respectable distance. Her head was firmly planted on her pillow, her torso half an arm's-length away.

Still too close for his sanity though...

He should get up. He should take his hand off her leg.

Just as the thought formed, a tiny frown furrowed her brow and he held his breath as she squirmed a little in her sleep, shifting a fraction closer, tucking her hand under her chin, bending her knee before relaxing again.

Ethan swallowed, every muscle fibre he owned balled tight, as JJ's knee and lower leg now pressed high and hard against his full-blown erection, trapping it in exquisite agony between her and his belly. Her leg was solid along the length of him and he fought the urge to push himself into it.

He should get up. He should take his hand off her leg.

Right now.

He should get the hell up, right this minute!

But he didn't. Instead his hand trekked along her leg towards her knee, pressing it firmly against his hard aching flesh. He lifted his hips slightly, rocked a little, the friction easing and stoking all at once.

His husky breath sounded loud in the dawn stillness and he shut his eyes, trying to regulate it. But images of flipping her on her back and plunging straight into her taunted him with their anatomical accuracy.

He almost groaned out loud at the technicolour realism of his dirty little fantasy.

He opened his eyes again, trying to drag himself away from it, to quell the images.

His heart raced, his breath sawed in and out.

He should get up. He should take his hand off her leg. Right now. He should get the hell up, right this minute!

This was wrong. He was going to hell. Directly to hell.

He turned his head to look at her, the real JJ, not the woman in his head who clung and begged and needed. To ground himself in reality, to gain some perspective.

Two hazel eyes stared back at him, long sleepy blinks fluttering her lashes open and closed. His hands stilled. His breath stuttered to a halt. His heart stopped its mad race in one decisive boom, before re-starting in a thick, slow pound inside his chest. He watched as sleep slipped away and clarity dawned.

Oh God, he _was_ going to hell right this minute.

But he watched as something else dawned too—awareness. She didn't say anything, didn't do anything—didn't withdraw her leg, didn't purse her lips in disapproval, or scramble out of bed.

Didn't slap his face.

She just looked at him, her mouth parted. Just lay there as if she hadn't woken to him in a very compromising position, breaking the rules they'd diligently put in place. _But she knew_. He could see it in her eyes. The way they went a little smoky, the way they drifted to his mouth. The way they lingered.

And then her gaze locked with his as she moved her knee slightly, pressed it into him a little harder. Ethan sucked in a breath as his erection surged against the pressure. His heart took off again, his hand convulsively gripped her leg. Then she rubbed it up and down the length of him, a long slow torturous friction, her eyes never leaving his.

Ethan swallowed, torn between rolling away and reaching for her. He couldn't believe he was faltering at their first test.

Couldn't believe he didn't care.

Lust bubbled thick as lava in his blood, desire chanted in his ears. Yanked at his groin. Tugged at his resistance.

_Screw it._ "JJ—"

But that was as far as he got before the door flung open with a bang and in a flash a bereted bundle of gangly arms and legs landed between them. JJ withdrew her leg just in time, saving it from imminent breakage.

"Daddy!"

It took Ethan a second or two to compute the rapid-fire change in situation as a pair of little arms around his neck practically constricted the blood flow to his brain. "Since when are you up with the chooks, especially on Sunday?" he asked his daughter as he dragged his eyes off an equally nonplussed JJ to look at Connie.

Somehow the beret had survived the leap, but she looked far from Parisian with it crammed atop her horrendous bed hair, which gave even bird's nests a bad name. Ethan's chest filled up with love for his hopelessly unstylish daughter.

She was fourteen years old for crying out loud—plenty of time for berets and bob cuts!

Connie gave a dramatic sigh. "It's the jet lag."

Ethan laughed. "Oh, so we have _the jet lag_ now, do we?"

Connie nodded. "It's sneaky like that." She turned to JJ, who was still lying on her side, elbow bent, head propped up on her flattened hand. She looked a little flustered still, like she was also having a hard time coming back from the edge. "It's going to be _the best_ having you here _every_ morning," Connie said.

Then she burrowed down, next to her, her back to JJ's front. On what seemed like automatic pilot, JJ drew her knees up and slung her arm around Connie's waist until they were spooning comfortably. "The best," JJ agreed, dropping a kiss on Connie's forehead.

Ethan sucked in a breath at the picture. Anyone looking in from outside could surely not doubt for a moment that they were a family. The thought paralysed him. Why the hell hadn't he fallen for JJ all those years ago instead of Delia? Someone solid and reliable and dependable instead of someone flighty and fickle and irresponsible.

The thought was confusing—completely out of the realm of anything he'd ever thought before and he just didn't know how to process it.

JJ was his friend for crying out loud.

"Huh," he joked to hide his turmoil. "I thought I was _the best_?"

Connie giggled. "You are. But you're Daddy. JJ's going to be my second Mummy."

Ethan felt lower than a slug at his daughter's obvious excitement. He glanced at JJ—if possible, she looked like she felt even lower. Ethan didn't know what to do to make it better, so he did the one thing that every red-blooded male he knew did when faced with the hard emotional stuff—he prepared to flee.

He smiled at Connie. "Well, now we've been so rudely awoken..."

He glanced at JJ and their gazes meshed. Neither of them needed to state the obvious— _they'd both been wide awake._ And a heartbeat from tearing each other's clothes off. "I'll put some coffee on."

He rolled up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He needed his body in order and his head on straight. Coffee was essential. And both Connie and JJ looked perfectly at home snuggled up together.

The thought spurred him out the door with inordinate haste.

What followed was the hardest week of JJ's life. Days where everything carried on as _normal_. Running the pub, serving up beer and advice and chatting to the locals. Same as always. Then the nights would swing around and things were far from _normal._

She was living in Ethan Weston's house as Ethan Weston's fiancée. She was _sleeping in Ethan Weston's bed_. Except everything was depressingly aboveboard and painstakingly platonic.

Apart from those early mornings where invariably—no matter how separate they started off—they ended up closer. Their bodies a whisper from contact—even touching sometimes. Her hand on his chest, his hand on her hip. Actually spooning one morning—his erection hard and urgent between her ass cheeks, both awake and both trying not to move. Both aware they were treading dangerous waters.

Thank goodness for Connie's early morning visits saving the day. _Saving them from each other._

But the build-up of frustration was slow and inexorable. _Inevitable_ many would have said. There were only so many early morning clinches a healthy adult woman could stand. Only so many times she could wake with his firm muscles beneath her hand, or his face close to hers or his arm heavy on her waist.

Only so many times she could play happy families—share meals, help with homework, do school drop off—without going _there_ in her head. Without imagining things. Hoping. Wishing. Dreaming.

By the time Friday rolled around, JJ's libido was at screaming point. She certainly wasn't in any mood to suffer fools. Which was unfortunate given the two people who chose that day to come calling.

Shane was first cab off the rank.

She'd not long opened the doors for the day and there was only her and three locals for company. Given that December had rocked around she'd been stringing tinsel along the bar and was out the back going through a box of Christmas decorations when she heard. "Beer please, bar-keep."

She knew the voice instantly. She'd know it anywhere. He'd whispered _I know you want me, bar-keep_ in her ear that night, just before he'd attacked her, as she'd dragged herself through layers of deep sleep to find him on top of her.

A part of her wanted to stay right where she was. To hide from him and all he represented. Her past. Her rage and her helplessness. But she refused to cower. She didn't want him to know she was vulnerable or frightened.

And she wasn't alone. She doubted that he was here to attack her in broad daylight with Mrs Durrum and two of the other ladies from the Country Women's Association at a booth sipping lemon, lime and bitters not ten metres away.

She took a calming breath and went out to face her demons. He was leaning on the bar like he owned it and she hated him a little bit more. "I think you need to go and find a beer elsewhere," she said.

What she wanted to say—we don't serve _your_ type here, she wisely kept to herself. There was no point in aggravating a man who had shown over and over his boiling point was way below average.

He smiled at her. The type of smile that said _I've seen you naked_ and her skin literally crawled. Where the hell had her brain been when she'd hooked up with him? "Don't be like that, JJ."

"I think Ethan, _my fiancé_ , was very clear about boundaries," she said, trying to stay calm as she fought a wave of nausea.

"You going to tattle?"

JJ never flinched. "Absolutely."

Shane rolled his eyes. "It doesn't need to be like this. I'm very sorry about everything that happened. Let me prove it to you. Let me buy you a drink and make up for it."

JJ almost choked on the bile rising in her throat. Did he think that a drink could repair the damage he'd done? "You can prove it by going down to Joe's for your beer."

Shane didn't budge. "You know what I was thinking about yesterday when the crew and I drove out to the Simpson property?" He didn't wait for her to answer. "We passed that rickety old sign to Baffle Caves. Do you remember that?"

JJ remembered. Their honeymoon. Back in the beginning before his possessiveness had reared its ugly head—they'd been happy then. They'd been all alone at the off-the-beaten-track camp site, a three-hour drive west. They'd explored the caves by day, slept under the stars at night.

"We could have that again," he said.

JJ opened her mouth to tell him to get out when Mrs Durrum and her two friends came right up and stood next to Shane at the bar. "You okay, dear?" she enquired.

"It's okay" Shane said. "We were just reminiscing about our honeymoon at Baffle Caves, weren't we, love?"

JJ's skin crawled at the endearment and she swallowed against the undercurrent of fear and panic that Shane's presence had stirred.

She would not be intimidated by him.

"Actually, Shane was just leaving," she said and was pleased to hear the steel in her voice.

"What about that beer?" he protested.

Mrs Durrum gave Shane an uncompromising look. Her friends followed suit. "You heard what the publican said, young man."

To say Shane looked pissed off was an understatement, but even he was smart enough to understand the implied protection—even if it was from three of the town's octogenarians.

He nodded at the grey-haired gang. "Ladies," he muttered as he took his leave.

JJ and her saviours watched him go. When the door shut behind him she turned to Mrs Durrum, relief surging through her system and said, "What can I get you, ladies? On the house."

"Oh, lovely," Mrs Durrum smiled. "I suppose it's still a little early for a G and T?"

JJ disagreed. "I think now's the perfect time," she grinned. In fact, she joined them.

Her second visitor came during the afternoon lull and was just as unwelcome.

"So," Delia said after approaching the bar, no preamble required, no polite chitchat. "You and Ethan are engaged, I hear."

JJ blinked. The woman still had claws. And balls the size of Brisbane. "Yes."

She flicked a disparaging glance at JJ's bare left hand. "Really? And yet no ring?"

JJ looked down at the finger in question. In all the ups and downs and turmoil of the last few weeks, an engagement ring had been the least of her worries. Which was exactly the difference between her and Delia. She didn't give a fig about some bauble on her finger.

"Ethan bought me a one-carat diamond—do you remember?"

JJ nodded. She remembered. He'd gotten a loan to cover the cost. "Fancy jewellery's never been my style," she dismissed.

JJ was still feeling edgy from her confrontation with Shane—Delia really didn't want to mess with her today.

Delia sniffed. "Indeed," she said and JJ was left in no doubt that she was somehow severely lacking in the feminine stakes. Then suddenly Delia switched track, her blue gaze glittering cold and hard. "It won't work you know," she said.

JJ frowned, trying to keep up. "I'm sorry?"

Delia laughed and there was a brittle desperateness to it that was kind of sad. "You think I don't know what's happening here? Ethan takes on a poor suffering fool, who's been in love with him since high school like some _sick_ puppy dog, so he can look good in front of the court."

Her spite was almost as palpable as Shane's passive aggression had been a few hours earlier. "I'll make sure the judge knows all about it," Delia continued. "He won't win. And you? You're going to lose doubly because no-one's ever going to be able to replace me, JJ. Certainly not a plain Jane like you. I'm his one great love. Sure," she dismissed, "you're everything I wasn't—dependable and reliable—but that's it. You're always going to be living in my shadow, JJ."

JJ felt heat rise in her face as the sting of Delia's words found their mark. She may hate Ethan's ex with all her heart but she knew the woman spoke the truth. Ethan had been besotted with Delia forever—what hope did she have?

The urge to strangle her with tinsel rose along with about a hundred vile home truths, pushing at her larynx, eager to find voice. Eager to crush the smug woman who stood in front of her. But JJ was determined to take the moral high ground if it killed her. She was Connie's mother and that was what mattered.

"Have you ever stopped to think about what Connie wants, Delia? You think she's going to just take this sitting down?"

"Connie needs her mother," Delia said waspishly. "I'm here now—you can back off."

"You think a trip to Paris makes you a mother? Makes up for years of neglect?" JJ shook her head. "If you really loved your daughter, you wouldn't do this to her. And you wouldn't do it to the man who has more of her love and loyalty than _any_ person on Earth. Don't be fooled that just because she's a kid she's easily duped. You don't know her, Delia. Not like Ethan. _Not like me_. She will _hate_ you if force this issue."

It gave JJ some small satisfaction to see Delia's confidence wane slightly. "She'll come round."

JJ shook her head. "She won't."

"She's fourteen," Delia bristled. "She doesn't know what's good for her. She needs me."

JJ nodded. She didn't bother to point out the flip side— _that Delia needed Connie more_. "Yes. She's _always_ needed you. But you weren't around and Ethan picked up the slack. Don't underestimate that bond."

Delia glared. "Too bad—the process is in motion. Ethan can't have her all to himself any more. Tell him that from me."

And before JJ could say another word, Delia had swept out of the bar with all the grace and elegance of a movie star.

JJ, in her beer splattered jeans and T, felt positively dowdy in comparison.

## Chapter Twelve

Ethan had a full head of steam on him by the time he picked up JJ from work on Saturday night—actually early hours of Sunday morning. Between notification from his lawyer this week about the custody proceedings going ahead, Connie staying the night with Delia, the growing sexual frustration of the past week and the visit from Mrs Durrum after dinner about Shane's pub visit the day before, he was at boiling point.

She was getting a piece of his mind that was for sure. It was that or he was going to do something really dumb like drag her into his arms and kiss her until they were both crazy with it, and wouldn't that complicate the hell out of things?

The nights were driving him crazy. Lying next to her, close enough to reach out and touch, close enough to feel the heat of her body, to smell the soap on her skin and the shampoo in her hair.

Waking up with some part of him touching some part of her. With an erection that wouldn't quit. That throbbed and bitched at him, desperate for release. Urging him to take advantage of the situation. To man up.

But... it was JJ. And they had rules. Which _he'd_ created.

He didn't understand how he could want someone he'd known all his life and up until recently had _never_ thought of in that way.

He was clearly starved of sexual gratification. Marcus had been telling him for years it was unhealthy to go without for so long. And if he'd known he was going to wind up fantasising about his _friend_ JJ, he may just have taken his younger brother's advice about regular trips into Brisbane.

Because all he could think about now _was_ her. JJ. Taking her, having her—rocking, pounding, thrusting. Over and over again. Making her moan, making her gasp, making her come so loud everyone in Jumbuck Springs would hear her.

And now he had Shane's harassment adding to his frustration. How the fuck could he keep her safe if she was keeping information from him?

Ethan strode into the pub spoiling for a fight.

At his entrance, JJ looked up from behind the tinsel-lined bar and smiled at him. He gave her a terse nod and watched as her smile slipped a little.

_Good_ — _she was on notice._

"Ethan," Mitch, one of JJ's staff members greeted, mop in hand.

Ethan nodded again as he started piling bar stools on tables, relieved that Mitch was still there helping her clean up. Mostly because it meant she wasn't alone at two in the morning. But a little bit because it meant _they_ weren't alone either.

He'd deliberately kept away until now, until after closing, not trusting himself to hold his temper in front of the customers. So there was another good reason to have Mitch around. God knew if he started his tirade about her irresponsibility now he wasn't likely to stop and there were just too many damn horizontal surfaces in the pub for his sanity.

He looked up as something bounced off his forehead to find a metallic snowflake hanging from the ceiling. In fact there were probably about a hundred of the things staring back at him along with more tinsel, metallic angels and paper Santas. Any other time he might have laughed. Jumbuck Springs had a snowflake's chance in hell of seeing a white Christmas.

But he was too mad to see the funny side.

Half an hour later they were done. Mitch had just left and JJ was following Ethan out of the pub, locking the door behind her. Ethan waited until she was done then headed for his police vehicle, parked on the street.

"Is everything okay?" she asked as she followed him.

"Yes," he threw over his shoulder, trying to get his temper under control. He needed to have a rational conversation with her.

He clicked the remote unlock button and four lights blinked in the night as the locks popped. He'd reached his car door when she said, "Has something happened with the custody thing?"

Ethan looked at her across the car hood. Even with a four-wheel-drive vehicle between them he wanted to haul her close and shake her. "Just get in the damn car, JJ."

He was pleased when she did as she was told. He was steamed enough without a fit of female petulance. When they were both buckled he revved the engine then screeched the tyres as he took off down the main drag. The radio was playing bush Christmas carols and he stabbed his finger at the off button. The last thing he wanted to hear was Six White _bloody_ Boomers right now.

JJ didn't say anything for a minute or so, but he could feel her assessing gaze on his profile. "Are you okay?" she eventually asked.

Ethan slammed the car into high gear as he sailed past the turnoff to their street. "No."

JJ frowned. "Where are we going?"

"Somewhere I can yell at you," he snapped.

Her frown deepened. "Yell at me? What the hell for?"

_She had to be kidding right?_ Ethan's jaw was so tense he thought it was going to crack. He could smell beer and rum and, in his peripheral vision, he could see the bounce of her breasts in her too-tight T-shirt with every bump in the road.

He was going slowly mad.

"I'm not talking about this now," he said tersely, applying all his mental faculties to the road illuminated in front of him. "I'm not going to drive and argue."

"We're going to argue?" she demanded.

Ethan flicked a grim glance her way. "Hell yeah."

He needed to yell and God help him, he hoped she yelled back. They needed to clear the air. Because otherwise this rising tension was going to manifest itself in other ways.

Bad, naked ways.

She was silent for a moment, looking out the window at ghostly gums and the bush flying by. "Can you at least tell me where we're going?"

"Hobson's Crossing."

"You're taking me to lovers' lane to yell at me?" she asked incredulously. "Jesus, Ethan," she snorted. "You sure know how to show a girl a good time."

Ethan gripped the steering wheel harder. She had no idea what kind of a time he could give her. "It'll be private," he said. "Even the most diehard teenager will have gone by now. And I was hoping—" his jaw clenched "—that the drive might help _calm me down_."

Another snort. "And how's that working out for you?"

"What do you reckon?" he snapped.

JJ sighed, but didn't say anything until they took the turn off five minutes later. "Ethan... I'm tired. It's been a long day, I really just want to fall into bed."

Ethan shut his eyes briefly as the knot between his shoulder blades pulled tighter. He'd rather she was in bed too—riding him like a prize stallion. "This won't take long," he said grimly.

A few minutes of ranting and raving ought to do it. A lecture on her safety and some harsh truths about what exactly a sick-son-of-a-bitch like Shane Gallagher could do to a woman if he had a mind to, should scare the bejesus out of her. Then he'd take her home to their bed and pretend he didn't want her.

Five minutes later they'd passed over the crossing that divided Hobson's Creek in two and were pulling up at the rudimentary car park. It was deserted, as he'd predicted.

Ethan switched off the engine and, after the chug of the motor died, silence engulfed them. His headlights illuminated the area in front, playing on the surface of the water and poking into the dark recesses of the creek bank on the opposite side. Large, smooth stones formed a natural edge to the waterhole on their side, where the bottom dropped steeply away to deep water.

Hobson's Creek was one of the many watercourses that were fed by the springs about an hour's drive further west and after which Jumbuck Springs was named. It was a place that was as familiar to him as any in the area, but one that had always called to him.

He often came out here to clear his head and think.

"Ethan?" JJ's soft voice broke into his reverie. "What's going on?" she asked, her hand sliding onto his forearm.

His pulse leapt and his skin tingled beneath her palm and he almost broke then. Almost reached across and hauled her into his lap, plundered her mouth with his, ground himself against her. Desire and propriety warred within him as his frustration reached boiling point.

"Don't touch me," he snapped, shaking her hand off, fumbling with his seatbelt, reefing his door open, stumbling out of the cab.

He stormed down to the water's edge following the twin beams of light projecting from his vehicle, his breath heaving in and out. He raked a shaky hand through his hair, dragged in great gulps of the balmy night air as insects hummed around him.

The slam of a door was loud and decisive and he looked back towards the vehicle in time to see JJ storming towards him, wavy hair a-bouncing. "What the hell is the matter with you?" she snapped. "First you drag me out here at two-thirty in the morning like some dumbass he-man—"

She halted in front of him, right in his personal space, the toe of her shoe practically bumping the toe of his boot and Ethan felt his blood pressure rise fifty points.

"—with _no_ explanation and _then_ you act like I have freaking Ebola, like you can't even stand to be anywhere near me. I didn't notice you being so goddamn particular that night you were drunk and gagging for it."

Her chest rose and fell and Ethan tried really hard not to notice. _Dear God, did she have no idea?_ She could have a mixture of rabies, a virulent zombie virus and some strange highly contagious pox from Mars and he'd still want to do her where they stood.

But that was not why they were here.

"Why didn't you tell me Shane visited you yesterday?" he demanded.

JJ blinked at him and then her face screwed up into some kind of contortion that left him in no doubt she thought he'd gone mad. _Maybe he had._ "Is _that_ what this is about?"

That was _one_ of the things this was about—the other stuff wasn't up for discussion. But her incredulous answer—like Shane's visit had been trivial—cranked his blood pressure up another fifty. "Have you got _any_ idea of some of the things I've seen?" he yelled. "Some of the things a pissed-off sicko bastard can do to a woman?"

"Yeah," she yelled back. "I had a black eye for a month and ribs that still bitch at me in winter."

Ethan snorted. "You think a few broken bones is the worst that can happen to you? Try that _plus_ deprivation of liberty, and hours and hours and hours of degradation and humiliation. Rape. Torture."

JJ pulled back from him a little, wrapping her arms around her waist. "Jesus, Ethan. You're being a little dramatic, aren't you?"

Ethan glared at her, half-crazy with the thought of what Shane might be capable of, sucking in warm air laden with eucalyptus. "No, I'm fucking not."

"It wasn't like that," she dismissed.

"Like what?" he hissed. "Mrs D said he was talking about your _honeymoon._ There's a big flashing red light if ever I saw one. How could you be so _stupid?_ "

JJ gasped at his choice of words, but Ethan was beyond rationality. He hated that Shane, who had beaten and abused her, had _ever_ been granted access to her body at all. It drove him crazy thinking that son-of-a-bitch had had his hands on her in _any_ way after how he'd mistreated her.

He wasn't fit for the privilege.

JJ shot him an icy glare. "What could you have done?" she demanded. "He didn't touch me, threaten me, harass me—nothing. He came in for a beer and talked a bit of smack. I asked him to leave and he left." She poked him in the chest. " _I handled it_."

Ethan leaned down, bringing his face closer to hers. It was important she understood what he could do. He dropped his voice an octave or two. "I'd have hunted him down and thrown his ass in jail overnight."

"For what?" she yelled.

"For _screwing_ with me," he yelled back, his breath puffing aside a stray lock of hair on her forehead.

She glared at him and her anger sparked and crackled like an electrical aura in the glow of the car lights. Her mouth was parted as if she was going to say more, and rough air shunted in and out of it as her chest heaved. The insects that had been trilling madly when they first arrived had fallen silent as if they too were waiting for her next words.

Their husky breath was the only sound to break the night, adding another layer to the already laden atmosphere. Ethan hadn't been this mad or this turned on in a long time and when her gaze dropped to his mouth he knew he was done for.

" _Fuck_."

And then he was grasping her shoulders and hauling her close, slamming his mouth down on hers, demanding she open to him, sweeping his tongue inside her mouth, groaning when she whimpered and grabbed his shirt.

"I want you," he muttered, pulling away from her mouth, dropping kisses on her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks, her nose.

"Yes," JJ murmured, her face turned upwards in offering. "Yes."

Ethan claimed her mouth again, drinking her in, feeling the heat and the buzz and the tingle spread from his lips to lower parts of his body. His neck, his chest, his belly, his thighs, and when her hands found their way inside his jeans and grabbed his ass, the tingle became a burn that raged out of control. It flambéed all his senses until nothing mattered but her mouth and the wild imperative to fuck her.

His hands pulled at her T-shirt, hers pulled at his. His fingers fumbled with her button and zipper, hers found his with startling accuracy and the noise as she yanked it down ripped through the air like the crack of a whip. Louder than their breath, louder than the urgent wash of his pulse through his ears.

Louder than the breaking of all their rules.

He dragged his mouth away as her fingernails scraped his aching erection. _Dear God_. "Hold on," he said.

"Wha—?" she said, but he was already swinging her up into his arms and stalking towards the vehicle. In ten long strides he'd arrived and set her to the ground, pushing her back against the passenger door, kissing her hard, grinding his erection into the juncture of her thighs, greedily sucking up her gasp and her moan as the delicious friction streaked heat to his balls.

"Get naked," he muttered against her mouth pulling away slightly, giving her room as he hastily tore at his own clothes.

His shirt was up and off in a flash but she just stood there watching, her gaze roving over his chest, looking a little dazed, and he grinned and kissed her again, brief and hard.

"Clothes," he demanded, pulling back, reaching for her shirt and yanking it up and off as well, tossing it on the ground.

Ethan's breath hissed out as he feasted his gaze on her breasts clad in a plain black bra. He couldn't have been more turned on if it had been Victoria's Secret.

"Oh... man, you are perfect," he muttered, skimming his hands up her belly to cup her breasts, moulding them, brushing his thumbs against the hard tips he couldn't see but could feel with every pass.

She moaned and arched her back and nothing could have stopped him from dipping his head, pulling the cups aside and putting his mouth to first one nipple then the other.

The way she gasped "Ethan!", the way she clutched at his shoulders and pushed into his mouth, fired his blood even more and he lifted his mouth to kiss her again, to plaster her against the door of the car with just his lips and the power if his lust.

She found his open fly again and his erection bucked as her hands dipped inside his undies and wrapped around his girth. Ethan tore his mouth away, his forehead coming to rest on hers as a groan bellowed out from a place so deep and buried it almost hurt.

"JJ," he panted, his eyes shut as she stroked her palm up and down the length of him—once, twice, three times.

_Enough_. He grabbed her hand and held it still as she tried to stroke him more. "Naked," he gasped again, reaching for her fly and ripping it down.

She unhanded him to take over and Ethan could finally think again. She pushed at her jeans, wiggling her hips, kicking out of them as he tended to his, first snagging the condom out of his wallet—the just-in-case condom he'd only started to carry since that night at the pub in JJ's bed.

And then she was naked in front of him and so, so tempting. But he knew if he touched her, started kissing her again they'd be going at it against the cold metal of the car door or on the ground in the dirt. The very least he could do now he'd gone all monosyllabic and Neanderthal on her was offer the relative comfort of his back seat.

"Car," he said, reaching around her to the handle, lifting it up. The door opened slightly, bumping her closer. Her breasts brushed his chest, his erection jabbed her belly. With a monumental effort he took a step back, snagging her hand, pulling her with him as he opened it all the way.

"Get in," he said, dropping a quick hard kiss on her mouth. "Now."

JJ turned and used the footplate to step up into the back seat. Her bare cheeks taunted him and the Neanderthal wanted to grab her right then and there and take her from behind. But then she was in and on her back and wiggling her way along the seat. With the interior light not working, it was darker inside the car, but he could still make out the enticing twist of her hips and legs.

Ethan's heart pounded, his mouth going dry as a surge of lust washed over him. For a moment he could barely see for the hot tide fogging his vision.

"Ethan?"

The desperation and uncertainty in her voice yanked him out of the mist and he blinked to clear it. She'd raised herself on her elbows and looked at him, a little frown forming a V between her eyebrows. He gazed up the long length of her closed legs, over the dark patch of hair at the juncture, up the slight rise of her belly onto her perky breasts.

She was perfect.

"Ethan," she whispered and this time it was an invitation as she moved her left leg, placing the foot flat on the floor of the vehicle and spreading her thighs wide.

Ethan followed the movement with his eyes. Trekked his gaze up from her bent knee, all the way along her inner thigh to the centre of her, the delicate detail hidden in shadow. He dragged his eyes away, glanced up and their gazes locked.

"Ethan, I swear to God..." she muttered, her elbows collapsing, her head dropping down onto the upholstery. "Do you need a handwritten invitation or should I just start without you?"

Ethan sucked in a breath as images of watching her pleasure herself blasted like a triple-x film into his brain. "No, ma'am," he said, tearing at the condom with his teeth.

He was going to be the one to satisfy her this time.

He sheathed himself quickly before vaulting up into the back seat. Her arms reached for him, pulling him into the cradle of her pelvis, her other leg bending up to accommodate him.

And then he was kissing her and she was kissing him back, her sighs and moans filling his head. He broke away, sought and found her nipples and she cried out and lifted her pelvis in invitation when he sucked them. "Ethan," she panted as she ground herself against him, "Please. I need you in me."

And he _didn't_ need a written invitation, just pushed straight into her heat, kissing her long and deep as they both groaned their satisfaction. She fit around him like a glove, clamping him in heat and honey and holding him in thrall with her pants and gasps, the dig of her nails into his ass, her pleas for more.

For harder, deeper, faster.

And he gave it to her, completely lost in the feel of her. He didn't care that he, the chief of police, was bare-ass naked at lovers' lane for all the world to see. He didn't care that he was making a complete hypocrite of himself, after lecturing hundreds of teenagers on the perils of such an activity. He didn't care that they were making enough noise to rouse his big boss in the big smoke who would definitely _not_ approve of this irregular use of a police vehicle.

He didn't even care that this was JJ, his friend, because he wanted to make her his lover—and to hell with the rules.

And it was good, damn it, and he never wanted it to end. Never wanted to stop doing this with her. It was just so easy. So good and right and easy. And precious little in his life had ever come this easy.

Figuratively or _literally_ as it turned out. JJ cried out as she bucked under him, her nails digging in to the small of his back as muscles deep inside her clamped down tight around him and her "yes, yes, yes," filled his head and catapulted his own orgasm into the stratosphere.

Pleasure popped and swirled and fizzed and his cries joined hers as he fell headlong into release.

JJ came gradually out of the haze as her body slowly returned to normal. She wasn't sure what the hell all this meant, all she knew was that Ethan's weight felt good and solid on top of her, he felt hard and thick inside her and she wanted more. She wanted it all. She certainly didn't want to leave this place where magic had happened in case the bubble burst the minute they buckled up.

Ethan's forehead was pressed into her chest, his breathing still hard. "Let's go for a swim," she said.

Ethan lifted his head and her breath caught in her throat at the satisfaction stamped all over his face. He kissed her and her heart just about burst out of her ribcage.

"I don't think I'm capable of walking," he murmured, dropping his forehead back on her chest, pressing little kisses along her collar bone.

JJ laughed. She felt light, giddy. She didn't want this time to end. Back in town a whole bunch of complications awaited them but here it was just her and him. She pushed at his shoulders, "Come on, old man," she teased.

Ethan groaned and moved to let her up as she shifted out from under him and headed for the open door. Her bare feet hit the ground and she turned to look at him lying stretched out on his belly, his magnificent thighs and ass filling her vision. "I'll make it worth your while."

Her heart flipped in her chest when he raised his head and looked back over his shoulder at her with a dark knowing gaze. "Promises, promises," he rumbled.

A minute later he joined her in the creek. The water was cool on heated flesh but not cold and JJ felt invigorated by it. And their sex.

She felt in- _freaking_ -vincible.

It had been tempting, while she'd waited for him, to analyse what had happened just now, but for once in her life she was just going to go with the flow.

Analysis would come as soon as they hit the town limits.

They splashed around and played for a brief time but it wasn't long before he swept her into his arms again and they were kissing like they hadn't just both come for Australia. Wet slippery kisses with cool lips and hot mouths.

Things got heated again. They got hard. They got wet.

Their breathing got heavy.

Ethan's erection was thick against her belly and JJ needed him thick inside her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, urging him into her, gasping when he filled her with heat and steel.

"God, you feel so damn good," he groaned into her neck.

Practically boneless, JJ's head fell back, the stars above her twisting with every long slow thrust.

Ethan groaned again. "We have to stop," he muttered.

JJ shook her head, her eyes shutting as he slid inside her. "No," she panted.

He gripped her hips harder. "No condom."

JJ moaned as he stopped high and hard inside her. "Damn it," she whispered, angling herself on him to create just the right amount of pressure in just the right spot.

His chuckle was quiet in the dark. "Hold on."

JJ was vaguely aware of the water swirling around them, of the light movement of air on her bare shoulders, of the stars floating above her, but everything felt disconnected, as she hovered on a sexual high somewhere between so-good and almost-there. The wild pulse between her legs obliterated everything, demanding her full attention.

It wasn't until Ethan murmured, "Hop up on the edge," that she became aware of her physical surroundings. Warm stones forming the steep bank behind her back, one of Ethan's hands braced on the smooth flat rocks of the ledge behind her head, the other on her thigh as he slowly withdrew.

"Oh no, no, no," she said, clamping tight around him, desperate to hold him inside her. She shut her eyes, tightened her hold around his neck. "Please don't stop," she panted.

"Shh," he murmured, his hot tongue lapping at the beads of water on the side of her neck. "It's okay. It'll be good. I promise."

"But—" Her protest as he withdrew was cut off by his mouth and she sunk into the kiss, rubbing her belly against his erection as he plundered and stroked and cranked her need ever higher.

Then he was boosting her up on to the side. Water sluiced down her back and belly and flanks. A light breeze stiffened her nipples and she shivered. She looked down at him, his head level with her knees, their gazes locking despite being hidden in shadow.

"Lay back."

JJ sucked in a tiny breath as everything clenched tight inside her at the gravelly command. She pushed her hands into his wet hair. "Officer Weston," she said, feigning shock. "I think what you are suggesting is conduct entirely unbecoming of a police officer in a public place."

He didn't do or say anything for a moment. Then, still holding her gaze, he slid his hands on her knees and slowly prised them wide apart. She gasped as cool water rushed in swirling and lapping at her heated core. He shifted in closer to her, his head now directly level with her sex, but still only looking at her.

"Lay back."

JJ felt the wild clench of her internal muscles, and not even a case of sudden-onset paralysis could have stopped her from falling back against the stones behind her. The shallow water of the ledge embraced her but she was barely conscious of it as his hot mouth closed over her, his tongue working her until the earth shifted beneath her and the stars exploded above her and every last cry had been wrenched from inside her.

Until she was his more than she'd ever been.

## Chapter Thirteen

The bubble _didn't_ burst the minute they buckled up. The bubble followed them right back into town and stayed firmly intact as they played happy families during the day, happier lovers during the night. Waking up in the morning to his lips at her neck, his hard body curled around hers.

It helped that by tacit agreement neither of them talked about what was happening. It was far easier to let the intimacy take over than to actually talk about it. Because if they talked about it, they'd have to name it—define it—and neither of them wanted to poke that bear with a stick.

JJ certainly didn't. She'd been given the rare and precious gift of time. And if she couldn't have him forever, if he couldn't ever love her because Delia still had a foothold in his heart or she'd scarred him for life or whatever, then JJ wanted these weeks and months with him.

And the lawyer said it could take up to three months for their case to be heard.

She knew in her heart of hearts she should be pushing him for answers. Trying to explore his thoughts and his feelings—going all Dr Phil on him. But she was afraid of what he'd say. Afraid he'd look at her with confusion and wariness.

She'd take lust and hunger any day—she liked them. A lot.

She'd take what she could get and she _would not_ rock the boat. She knew her time was finite. Shane would be gone and the custody case would eventually be over.

And who knew where she'd stand then?

On Wednesday her bubble got a whole new injection of gloss and helium. Ethan strode into the pub not long after opening, a grin as broad as an outback horizon lighting his face. JJ's breath caught in her throat. Even without the uniform he was an exceptionally good-looking man, but there was something very macho about his navy police fatigues and his loaded utility belt.

She remembered the first time she'd seen him in uniform. She'd attended his graduation ceremony in Brisbane and he was all dressed up in his formal blues. Marcus had told him he looked like a city boy, his mother had cried and straightened his tie and Delia had pouted about his lack of a gun.

JJ had been torn between bursting with pride and swooning at his feet.

The formal uniform was very different to the one that was coming at her now—but both of them sure as hell made the man. A navy cap with a trim of white police checks sat low on his brow, non-regulation shaggy hair flowing loosely behind like a goddamn freaking rock star. In a uniform.

He stood on the other side of the bar, but sexual energy arced between them and pulled at her despite the sturdy wooden construction separating them. "I think you should kiss me right away," he announced, leaning in, his elbows on the bar.

JJ's fingers tightened around the glass in her hand as her belly looped a crazy loop. "Well, I don't know what you've heard, Officer Weston," she said primly, "but I'm just not that easy."

The look in his eyes told her he knew exactly how easy she was. She filled the glass with water. "And what makes you so chipper this morning?" She remembered going down on her knees in front of him in the shower a few hours ago and, as she handed him the glass, she knew he was thinking about it too. "Apart from the obvious," she smiled.

He smiled back before taking a long swallow of his water and JJ admired the bob of his throat. "I went to a call-out at the Nicolson property just now."

JJ's smile faded. There was shearing going on at the Nicolson's right now. JJ narrowed her gaze. It was obviously good news and it was obviously about Shane. Her heart beat a little faster— _dare she hope_? "I'm going to like this, aren't I?"

"Yup," he nodded. "You're going to freaking love it."

"Well, come on, officer," She reached across and whipped his cap off, pulling it low on her own head. "Spit it out!"

It was gratifying that his gaze lingered on the row of buttons that secured her T-shirt. Heat flared in his eyes and she was surprised they didn't all spontaneously pop in response. Her nipples certainly had.

"God, you look sexy in that cap," he muttered.

"Ethan!" she said in exasperation.

"Shane's gone," he announced. "He was caught red-handed stealing one of the other shearer's iPod while everyone was eating breakfast. He was sacked on the spot and the foreman told him he'd give him a few hours head start before he called the cops."

JJ blinked as the worry and the tension of the last month seeped from her marrow. Hell, she hadn't realised she'd been that worried about it until it all suddenly released.

"Really?" she asked, too afraid to believe it in case it was something she'd dreamed up. "He's really gone?"

Ethan nodded. "The other shearer didn't want to press any charges so no-one's going to be chasing him, but I've been talking to head office and Shane's car was caught on a highway camera crossing the border."

JJ couldn't believe her luck. "You're right," she said, "I do freaking love it."

Almost as much as I love you.

The thought rose and fell in the blink of an eye. "Now it's just the wicked witch of the west to _vanquish_ and we'll both have our lives back."

She kept her smile on straight even though the thought of living separate lives again was like a hot fist being rammed into her diaphragm.

Ethan chuckled. "Oh I do love the way you say vanquish," he murmured. "Especially in that cap." He leaned in closer. "I'm wondering how good you'd look saying it in that cap with your shirt undone," he said and JJ's insides tightened at the dirty in his voice. He grabbed her hand across the bar. "They won't miss you here for ten minutes will they?"

JJ looked around at the near-empty pub, just a few punters entertaining themselves. She let Ethan drag her along, their hands linked over the top of the bar. "Where are we going?" she laughed.

"Your office, where I can undo those ridiculous buttons."

JJ's pulse leapt. She let his hand go once they got to the end of the long bar then let him into the bar area through a hinged section of the wood.

"Be back in a few minutes," she said in the general direction of her customers, before Ethan whisked her out the back and down the short corridor to her very rudimentary office.

He fell on her the minute the door was shut behind them, pushing her hard against it. "God," he said, his hands making short work of the buttons, his mouth at her neck. "This is good. I can never seem to get you to myself."

JJ shut her eyes, holding on to his shoulders for stability as her head spun. Ethan ran his tongue from the hollow of her throat all the way up to her chin and she clutched at him even harder as her knees threatened to give out. "You have me to yourself all night," she panted.

"I meant during the day." He peeled her shirt back and looked down at her breasts and JJ felt like she had a set of double Ds instead of paltry As. He raised his hands to stroke the inner swells of her cleavage and her nipples hardened. "I like to touch you during the day too."

Her breath caught, her hands went lax on his shoulders— _he did_?

He bent his head to drop kisses where his hands had just been. "If it's not your customers, it's Connie or one of my bloody siblings."

JJ arched her back. She smiled as she remembered the brisk clearing of a masculine throat this morning as Ethan's hand had wandered into her underwear the second he'd lifted her on to the bench next to the coffee percolator and walked in between her parted thighs.

Jarrod had raised an eyebrow at them as they'd quickly separated. "I hope you're going to wipe that top down when you're finished. By the way, I just saw Connie get up."

Despite the fact neither Marcus or Jarrod lived at the house anymore, they still dropped by whenever they damn well pleased. But there was no-one here now. Not Connie. Not Jarrod. Not her customers. Just her and him.

"Now say vanquish," he whispered in her ear as his fingers found her fly and his hand found its way inside her pants.

"Ethan," she gasped, clutching his arm as he burrowed into her slickness and heat.

He groaned. "God, you're wet."

She reached for him, for access to his cock, which taunted her through two lots of fabric, but her fingers got lost trying to just get into his uniform. "Jesus," she muttered. "Are these corruption proof?"

He laughed and it was so low and hot and sexy in her ear she almost came right there and then. "Forget it," he said as he kissed her mouth and her neck and her shoulder and pushed a finger deep inside her. "Just you."

" _Ethan_." She wasn't sure if it was a moan, a gasp or a protest. All she knew was she wanted more and when he pushed another finger inside her she cried out—loud enough to be heard outside.

"Shh," he murmured, claiming her lips, cutting her off. And when she bucked he whispered, "Easy there," against her mouth.

JJ's orgasm built like greased lightning as Ethan simultaneously invaded her hot centre with the hard thrust of his fingers and plundered the soft contours of her mouth with the hard thrust of his tongue.

In a short few weeks he knew how to push her buttons better than any man she had ever known.

It was no surprise to her when she crested quickly, bearing down on the hard intrusion of his fingers, clamping tight as he smothered her noisy release with his mouth.

She came down slowly from the cloud thanks to the last vestiges of her orgasm lingering in her abdominal muscles. He was raining butterfly kisses over her face and neck, his fingers long withdrawn, as she finally came back to the present.

"Jesus, Ethan," she swore. "How am I supposed to go to work now?"

He kissed her hard. So hard her head banged back against the door. "Same as me," he muttered when he finally came up for air. "Counting down the hours until tonight."

Sunday arrived, as did the weekly tradition of everyone gathering at the Weston house for lunch. Ethan enjoyed himself immensely, despite Connie being at Delia's. He'd spoken with his ex this week and she seemed much more reasonable about managing this as best they could with Connie's interests being the priority. Connie was going to be home in a few hours and they were all going to put the Christmas tree up together.

Between that and the threat of Shane gone, Ethan felt like a weight had been lifted. Like maybe everything was going to work out okay.

And then there was JJ.

Sitting around the table with everyone, laughing and chatting, touching him, smiling at him when he touched her, like they'd been together for years. Like she belonged. Like she _was_ a Weston.

But the buzz ended abruptly after they'd finished their meals with the banging of the front door and a distressed Connie bursting into the kitchen, followed closely by the young police constable, Carl Stevens.

Ethan stood, blood draining from his face at the state of his daughter and Carl's serious face. "Connie? What the—" he said as she hurtled into his arms.

"Chief," Carl nodded, cap in hand, awkwardly shuffling his feet.

Ethan was too stunned to say anything for a moment as Connie buried her face in his stomach and cried great loud heaving sobs. He glanced at JJ who looked just as stunned and he wished she was by his side.

"What the hell is going on?" he demanded, returning his attention to Carl.

"I was coming back into town after a call-out and I found her walking along the highway, Chief. She was like this... bawling... she wouldn't tell me what was wrong, she just... kept crying and saying she wanted to go home. So I brought her here."

"On the highway into town?" Ethan asked incredulously.

He looked down at Connie's head. She was supposed to be with her mother, who lived fifteen kilometres out on Edward's sheep station. What the hell was she doing on the highway?

Ethan went hot and cold as a million possible scenarios—all of them bad—flitted through his head. _Anything could have happened to her._ He wasn't sure if he wanted to hug her tighter or spank her.

Ethan nodded. "Okay, Carl, thanks, you did the right thing," he assured as the young man twisted his cap in his hands around and around. Ethan stuck out his hand over Connie's head and shook Carl's hand. "Really, you did good. Thank you."

Carl relaxed for the first time and eagerly withdrew when Ethan said, "I'll take it from here."

Ethan stroked his daughter's hair for a moment or two, the faint slapping of the screen door heralding Carl's departure. Her crying continued, her little shoulders heaving and he was so grateful she was here, she was safe, that he temporarily forgot about the mini-heart attack she'd just given him.

He was aware of everyone's gaze on him, waiting for him to do or say something. Ethan roused his wits as relief gave way to worry. "Okay," he said, prising Connie's arms gently from around his waist. "What on earth's the matter?" he asked, looking down into her tear-streaked face. She looked like her entire world had ended. "Are you hurt? Did something happen? Did someone..."

He couldn't even bring himself to think it let alone say it. If anyone had laid a finger on her he was going to throw his badge in, hunt them down and kill them with his bare hands.

Connie shook her head at him like she had that day her grandmother was gone—in utter disbelief. "Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded, choking on a sob, scrubbing her hands across her eyes.

Ethan frowned and wished he knew what the hell she was talking about. She'd had her irrational hormonal moments the last six months or so, but he'd never seen her this upset.

"Tell you what?"

"That I was going to live with Mum," she yelled. "Why didn't you tell me that you didn't want me anymore?" Her face collapsed. "I won't go," she cried, stamping her foot, her bob swinging, fresh tears falling. "I won't, I won't, I won't."

Then she flung her arms around his waist again.

Ethan blinked. _What the fuck?_ White-hot rage flared in his veins as realisation dawned. He was going to kill Delia. They'd agreed on the phone that they weren't going to say anything to Connie until a court date had been set. And that they were going to do it together.

He looked at JJ, too angry to be articulate, hoping she could be the voice of reason while he pulled himself together, but she looked just as pissed off.

He took a deep breath. "Okay," he said, sitting down on the chair behind him and dragging her onto his lap. Connie buried her face in his neck, still weeping for Australia. He pulled his head back, trying to see into her face but she clung to him, refusing to lift her forehead.

"Look at me, Connie," he said. When she ignored him he said, "You're not going anywhere, sweetie."

Connie choked on another sob as she glanced up at him. "I'm n-not?"

_Not if he could help it_. "No," He smiled at her and hoped to God he was right. He brushed her sweaty fringe off her face and used his thumbs to wipe away her tears. "Tell me what your mum said." He needed to get his facts straight if he ever hoped to untwist the knot Delia had created.

JJ handed Connie a tissue. "Here kiddo, blow your nose," she said, and Ethan smiled at her gratefully as his daughter obediently blew and wiped and handed the tissue back to JJ.

Connie looked at her father. "She said that it was her turn with me now. That you didn't know how to raise a hormonal teenage girl. That you and Uncle Marcus and Uncle Jarrod wouldn't want to be bothered with all that girl stuff."

"Not me," Marcus said. "I love girl stuff."

"Same here," Jarrod agreed. "Girls rock."

They were keeping things light, trying to be their usual laid-back selves, but Ethan had known his brothers long enough to hear the tightness of their tones.

Still, Connie laughed and God knew things did need lightening at the moment.

He chose his next words carefully. He'd always been honest with Connie, but he knew some things didn't have easy answers. And as much as he wanted to badmouth Delia in front of his daughter, he hadn't in the past and he wasn't going to start right now.

His ex was here to stay and he was going to have to deal with it.

"Yes," he said, "your mum wants you to go and live with her full time."

Connie gasped. "But—"

"It's okay," he cut her off. "That doesn't mean it's going to happen. I want you, we _all_ want you," he clarified, looking around at everyone gathered at the table, who were all nodding appropriately, "living here. Just like you always have. But..." _if Delia continues to be militant about it_ "... we might have to go to court and tell a judge that."

Connie's eyes grew wide. "A judge?"

"Maybe," he confirmed. "But I'm hoping it won't get that far and if it does then we'll all be there with you."

Connie looked around the table. "Really?" she asked.

"Absolutely," JJ said and everyone agreed.

Connie's little shoulders sagged and she sighed dramatically. "Okay," she said and tucked her head in under Ethan's chin.

Ethan shut his eyes and let out a shaky breath. "Okay," he murmured and he just held her close for a few moments, allowing the whirlpool of emotions filling his chest free rein.

"Connie, sweetie," JJ asked after a moment or two. "How on earth did you end up on the highway?"

"I told Mum I didn't want to live with her, that I would hate her forever if she made me, and she sent me to my room to think about what I'd said and to come back down when I was more polite. So I climbed out the window and ran away."

Ethan looked down into his daughter's defiant little face. "That was really dangerous, sweetie," he scolded. "Anything could have happened to you." The thought was almost turning him grey on the spot—Connie was usually so level-headed. "I was coming to get you in two hours, for Pete's sake, why didn't you just wait?"

"I needed to see you," Connie said, snuggling back in under his chin again and holding on to his arm for good measure.

"So... she thinks you're still in your bedroom?" JJ asked.

Ethan blinked. Trust JJ to think about the practicalities. He'd been too relieved Connie was safe to worry about Delia. But as much as he wanted to shake her right now, he could only imagine her panic when she found Connie's room empty.

"I'll ring her," JJ said.

"Thanks." He smiled at her, so grateful she was around, keeping a cool head.

"Can we put the Christmas tree up now, Daddy?" Connie asked, as JJ left the room with her phone.

"Absolutely," he nodded. "We'll just wait for JJ."

It didn't seem right to start without her.

## Chapter Fourteen

Two weeks later, under the sustained cold shoulder of a determined fourteen year old, Delia cracked. "Okay," she said to Ethan over the phone a few hours after she'd dropped a sullen, uncommunicative, hunger-striking Connie back to him late Friday afternoon. "You win."

Ethan's pulse spiked and he gripped the phone harder. "This isn't a game," he said wearily.

There was silence for a moment or two. "JJ was right, Connie does hate me."

"She doesn't hate you," he said. He didn't owe Delia an ego boost, and God knew she didn't deserve one, but if this phone call was about what he thought it was, then he could afford to be gracious. "She's angry with you."

"I just wanted to be her mother... I thought, with Paris, she'd wanted that too. Edward warned me I was pushing too far too fast but... I was just trying to make up for lost time."

"There's a lot to make up for, Delia."

"I know..."

Ethan thought he heard a soft sob but he couldn't be sure.

"I do know what a lousy mother I've been. I know that you think I lack insight, but I don't. I know that I hurt you a lot and worse than that, deserted my child. I know I was spoilt and selfish and that I have a lot of making up to do. But..."

There was very definitely a sob this time and what sounded like a nose being blown.

"I do want to be here for her now. I'm just so scared she's never going to want me after... after leaving her the way I did. I guess I felt if I forced her then she wouldn't have a choice. I'm sorry. I don't want her to hate me. I want her to want to be with me. I want her to be happy."

Once upon a time Delia's tears would have undone him, but that Ethan was long gone. Still, her dejection was promising. In the past she'd been bitchy, arrogant, self-centred and spoilt. It was good to hear her so uncertain.

Now she sounded human. Like a parent. Like a mother, putting her kid first.

"Give her time, Delia," he sighed.

"That's what Edward says."

Ethan grunted. "I always did like him."

"I'd still like to see more of her," Delia said.

"And we can talk about that," Ethan confirmed. "But you're going to have to start from scratch and win back some trust."

Delia gave a sniffling half-laugh. "I don't think Edward can take any more time away from the property to go to Paris again."

Ethan smiled. "She doesn't need Paris. She just needs to know you're sticking around and that she's your number one priority."

"She is."

Ethan nodded at the conviction in her voice. The thought that Connie might have her mother back in her life suddenly didn't feel like so much of a threat. "Okay then."

"I'll call the lawyer first thing Monday morning and withdraw my custody petition."

Ethan hadn't dared believe until he'd heard the actual words. He sat down at the kitchen table, his legs suddenly unsteady as relief wooshed, light and airy, through his system. "Thank you."

"No, _thank you_."

"Just don't screw it up this time, Delia." Ethan knew a desertion now would cut much deeper. "Connie's not two anymore."

"I'm not going anywhere," Delia assured.

Ethan hung up the phone, unable to believe his luck. He'd been girding his loins, preparing for the whole horrible ordeal, scared out of his brain that a judge would take Delia's side.

And now it was over.

And he was free.

He grabbed the phone to call JJ. She'd be ecstatic. She'd want to know. He could almost hear her sexy _huh, vanquished bitch_ coming from her mouth and he smiled to himself as he waited for the phone to pick up. When it did the background noise made it almost impossible to hear Mitch when he answered. "She's crazy busy at the bar," Mitch yelled. "The place is going off tonight."

Music and the hum of a large crowd crackled down the line. There was a band playing tonight. "Okay, no worries. I'll see her when she gets home."

He hung up and called her mobile. He knew she wouldn't answer but he wanted to leave her a message for later. The phone rang for ten rings then went to messages as he knew it would. "Baby, have I got _the best_ news for you. You better be naked when you get into bed tonight and don't plan on getting any sleep."

He grinned to himself as he hung up and looked at his watch—eight-thirty. It would be another six hours before JJ got home with Jarrod and Selena who were going to see the band with Coop and Lacey. They were bringing JJ home then going to crash next door at her grandmother's house.

With Connie asleep the house was quiet. Quiet enough to hear the buzz of anticipation hum through his system.

JJ waved goodbye to Jarrod and Selena as they let themselves in next door and she let herself into Ethan's. It was two thirty-nine when she crept into his bedroom. She was exhausted, she was partially deaf from the thunder of country rock, she reeked of alcohol and her feet were throbbing. She needed to get out of her clothes, she needed a shower, she needed a sleep.

But Ethan, as usual, stopped her in her tracks. Even in his regulation boxers and T-shirt he was distracting as hell, taking up all the room in the bed, the sheet tangled in his legs, one arm thrown above his head, his face turned towards a meaty bicep.

The words from his message played over in her head and her belly clenched. The way he'd called her baby had melted her heart and, although she was curious about the _news_ , the second part of the message was of more interest with him all laid out before her like this.

Oh, the things she could do...

Her feet throbbed a sudden reminder and she dragged her eyes off him to quickly shuck her T-shirt, jeans and bra. She reached for her gown hanging on a hook on the back of the cupboard door. In a house with only one tiny, communal bathroom she'd found it easier to wear a gown there and back and dress in the bedroom.

"I think you forgot your undies."

JJ started at his deep sleepy rumble and looked down at him as his eyes fluttered open. "I thought you were asleep."

He looked her up and down, his gaze lingering on her naked breasts, and her belly stirred. "Not now."

Her gown was in her hand and she could easily have put it on but she was enjoying the way his eyes ran over her like he knew every millimetre of her skin, like he wanted to know it some more.

"Well," she demanded, dropping the gown to the floor as she shoved her hands on her hips, and thrust out her chest a little in a deliberately provocative motion. "What's this news?"

Ethan shook his head. "Undies first."

JJ's pulse tripped as his gaze settled on the garment in question. Her hands shook as she wiggled out of them and stood in front of him completely naked.

"Well?" she repeated.

"Better," he muttered, his hand shooting out to grab hers, giving a tug, toppling her down along his length before rolling her under him. He kissed her and she let him, sucking up every last tasty morsel of him.

"I need a shower," she protested breathily when they came up for air. "I smell like a brewery."

"I like how you smell," he murmured, nibbling down her neck. "I like you smelling of beer and rum and bar." His hand stroked against a taut nipple and JJ moaned. "It's intoxicating," he said and she could feel him smiling as he strung kisses from one shoulder to the other.

She laughed. "You're crazy."

He looked up at her and captured her gaze with his and JJ sucked in her breath at the intensity she saw there. "Certifiable," he agreed.

Still with their gazes locked, he reached over to the bedside table and grabbed a foil packet. She was amazed at his ability to get the condom out and on, all one handed, and in good time. "Impressive," she murmured as he settled back against her, his pelvis aligning with hers, the hard length of him gliding along the slickness at her core.

"You ain't seen nothing yet," he said against her mouth, claiming her lips as he thrust inside her.

JJ moaned out loud, gripping his shoulders hard, her legs locking around his waist as desire tugged her in a hundred different delicious directions.

"Hey," she panted, breaking away from his mouth, as he stayed still, high and hard, building a delicious tension in her belly. "You said you'd tell me the news if I took my undies off. You owe me."

He moved inside her, deep and slow, just the barest of thrusts as he said. "You wanna know?"

JJ shut her eyes as he pulled out a little more and slid home again. "I want to know," she said.

"You really want to know?" he asked again, pulling out more, pushing in again.

JJ gasped. "Yes, damn it."

He pulled almost all the way out then slid all the way in again. "Delia's dropping the custody petition."

JJ opened her eyes. The tension building in her pelvis from his slow deliberate assault was almost at breaking point, but the news was too stunning to ignore. "Really?"

He kissed her hard and she kissed him back with everything she had, so full of him and her love for him.

"Really," he said. "Really, really, really."

He punctuated each word with a slow steady thrust and then he stopped talking altogether, just thrusting and thrusting with slow deliberate strokes and JJ gave herself over to the push and the pull. To the heat and the build. To the pound of her pulse and the saw of her breath. To the sensations bursting like pop-rocks in her belly and thighs, spiralling up and out from where they were joined, and showering her in pleasure like bursts of fireworks into the night.

He joined her in the tumult, his guttural groan vibrating against her neck, his breathing heavy, his movements jerky as he emptied himself inside her, holding her close. And when he collapsed against her, spent, she felt like she'd never be the same again. Like he'd turned her inside out and made her a different version of herself.

JJ ran her fingers through his hair as they lay in the aftermath, both still breathing hard, his weight pinning her to the bed. Her head buzzed and her blood fizzed through her veins and endorphins invaded every cell with peace and goodwill.

She was so damn high she felt like she was going to combust. _I love you_. It filled her head like a mantra and it sounded good and right and perfect.

"I love you."

It was Ethan's sudden stillness that alerted her to the fact that she'd actually spoken out loud. And then he shifted off her, rolling onto his back, staring at the ceiling for a couple of moments before vaulting upright, his feet hitting the floor. He stood and got rid of the condom, reaching for his underwear, his back to her.

JJ felt her high evaporate as she watched the play of muscles in his back. Crap.

_Crap, crap, crap._ What the hell had she gone and said that for? She'd kept it to herself for decades, for crying out loud.

He crouched and picked up her gown, handing it to her as he turned around. JJ sucked in a deep breath and took it. She slid out the other side of the bed and wrapped herself in it, before she turned to face him. He looked grim and she swallowed.

"Did you mean what you just said?" he asked, his voice low, conscious she supposed of Connie asleep down the hallway.

JJ's pulse thundered through her ears. She had two choices—lie or tell the truth. She could brush it off, pretend it was said under the influence of sexual inebriation. Or she could cut the crap and just 'fess up. She looked at him across the bed where they'd loved each other for weeks. Even if he didn't want to think about it like that, she knew what they'd shared.

"Yes."

He sucked in a breath and she almost recanted at the shock on his face. The thought that she could lose him altogether cut her to the quick. But she couldn't let that be a factor any more, not when she'd come this far.

She had a chance now—her one real chance to take what they had these last weeks and turn it into something real. Something solid and good and right. She'd been a coward too long, keeping her love a secret.

Well, no more. He might not want to hear it, but she wasn't going to pretend any longer. It was time to rock the boat.

"I can't remember a time when I wasn't in love with you."

Ethan actually went pale at that admission, but hey—in for a penny, in for a pound, right?

"I don't know what to say," he said.

JJ nodded slowly as his words battered like a ram against her heart. He didn't need to say anything—his recoil told her all she needed to know. She wrapped her arms round her waist. "Well, if you don't know what to say then..."

Ethan frowned. "No, it's just that..." he stopped, looking like he was trying to find the right words. "You're JJ... I never thought of you like this. The sex thing has been hard enough to get my head around..." He raked a hand through his hair. "I've only ever loved one woman..."

JJ felt that blow to her chest even harder than the first. She thought how unfair it was that he should look this damn fine while he was telling her he loved another woman.

"Oh, God," she whispered, "you _are_ still in love with Delia."

What an idiot she'd been. She'd known that he'd been tangled up in the other woman for a long time, but being with him these last weeks she'd really thought he was over her.

Ethan recoiled. "What? No!" He stalked around to her side of the bed. "Absolutely not!" He stopped in front of her. "I _loved_ Delia, yes... but not for a very long time."

JJ shook her head. "And yet, you haven't found anyone else," she said accusingly. "One of Jumbuck's most eligible single guys?"

He snorted. "Do you blame me? After the complete fucking disaster that was Delia?" He shook his head. "She scarred me for life. You think I'm going to put myself in front of that train wreck again? I don't think I can even _feel_ love anymore."

Another blow punched straight into her heart. "Don't be ridiculous. You love Connie. And your family."

"I'm not talking about that kind of love. And neither are you."

JJ scrunched her hands by her side as the overwhelming urge to touch him, to place her hand on his arm, rose like a tidal wave inside her. "There are plenty of amazing, loving, long-lasting relationships out there, Ethan. Your parents had one, remember?"

He nodded. "Sure. But I have a kid who takes up all my time and whose needs I have to prioritise above my own. I don't have time for trial and error and I can't bring a string of women in and out of Connie's life looking for _the one_ who might be able to stick the rather unexciting life of wife of a small-town cop—because Delia sure as hell couldn't."

A surge of anger at Delia rose in JJ. But also at Ethan. She'd have been his _one_ in a heartbeat. He'd just been too blinded by lust to see it.

"You know Delia may have been a spoilt, selfish little princess but you have to take some responsibility there too. She'd always been materialistic and flighty and you knew that as well as the next guy. But you just couldn't wait to get your hands on those D cups and check out what was under her itty bitty skirt. She led you a merry dance, but you followed willingly. With your tongue hanging out."

She'd never had the courage to say that to Ethan before. She'd always been his shoulder to cry on, his ear to listen to. _Good old buddy JJ_.

And it felt good.

"You think I don't know that?" he hissed. "That's the bloody point. I was utterly blinded by her. By a ridiculous hormonal surge. I learnt a long time ago not to trust that. I don't trust _love_ ," he said. "It just makes fools of us."

JJ heard the finality in his words and she knew she didn't have the ammunition to fight that. _Not right now anyway._ Delia had scarred him—a great, big, ugly, impenetrable, keloid scar. And she didn't know how to fix that. She was too tired, too angry, too used up.

She didn't know what was going to happen to them now she'd laid her heart on the line and he'd stomped all over it. But she did know she couldn't stay here a second longer.

She skirted around him and headed for her clothes. She shrugged off her gown and climbed into her underwear then her jeans.

"JJ... what are you doing?" he asked as she reached for her bra.

"I'm going to the pub."

Ethan rubbed his hands through his hair. "You can't leave here in the middle of the night."

She hooked her bra on. "Watch me."

"It's after three in the morning."

"I know," she said, shoving her head into her T-shirt.

He sighed. "I'll take you."

JJ reefed her shirt down. "No you will not," she hissed and didn't care who she woke up in the process. "I'm perfectly bloody capable of driving myself to the pub."

"And what do I tell Connie in the morning?" he demanded.

JJ shook her head. "Tell her something came up and I had to go in early. I don't know. I don't care." She shoved her feet into her shoes and picked up her bag. "This thing was going to end anyway, with the custody case dropped," she said wearily. "We'll talk about how to approach things with Connie tomorrow."

"JJ... at least stay until the morning."

The plea in his voice was soft and reasonable and it took all of JJ's strength to shake her head. She needed to go somewhere her heart could break without an audience.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she said as she headed out the door, uncaring that it banged loudly in the still of the night.

By the time Ethan pulled up at the pub late that afternoon the post-lunch lull had hit and he was feeling more under control. He had a plan, and a speech, and he was pretty sure JJ would see its merits. He _could_ fix this.

He'd lain awake thinking, turning the problem over and over in his head. Trying to come up with something so they both could get what they wanted. Having JJ around the house—helping with Connie, revelling in the crazy drop-in culture of his house, heating up his bed—had been some of the best weeks of his life.

Some of the best weeks of JJ's life too, he suspected.

And he wanted that to continue.

So maybe they could still have that? Maybe they could get married _for real_. Then she'd get a bit of what she wanted—his official declaration of commitment with a certificate to prove it—and he could have her in his house and in his family and his bed.

They could be really happy this way—he was sure of it.

It was sensible, reasonable and practical. And JJ was all of those things.

Surely she could see the advantage in it?

Ethan spotted her behind the bar as soon as he entered, and was dismayed to see her scowl. She looked tired and puffy around her eyes and really not in the mood for a chat. But whether she liked it or not, they needed to talk and the bar was light on customers.

"We need to talk," he said as he leant on the bar. "Now."

She looked like she was going to argue for a moment but then her shoulders sagged in resignation. He already missed the days she'd grinned at him when he strode inside, welcomed him with some bar gossip and a joke.

If she rejected him now, would their future always be like this—her scowling at him?

"Mitch," she called through the window that separated the bar from the kitchen. "Can you take over here for a few minutes?"

He was conscious of her following him down the corridor to her office. Conscious of how fast he had made her come against the door as it shut behind her. Conscious of what was at stake as she walked the few paces to her desk then turned and sat on the edge, her palms on her thighs. "I've been thinking about what we should say to Connie," she said.

"I'm not here to talk about Connie," Ethan dismissed. "Well not entirely anyway. I've come to talk about us."

He watched as her throat bobbed and she rubbed her palms back and forth along denim thighs. "Oh?"

"I've been thinking about what you said. About loving me." He paused, swallowed. He had to get this right. "I think we should get married. For real."

JJ blinked at him and her mouth actually dropped open. She looked at him with confusion in her eyes.

"Just think about it," he implored. "I _know_ you've enjoyed your time at the house. I _know_ you've been into that. And I'm not just talking about the sex. You're part of our family now. Well, you've always been part of it, really, this will just make it official."

Ethan stopped. Gathered his wits for a moment. "You get me and Connie, which is what I know you want. And I want that too. We need an adult female influence in our house—you've been like a ray of sunshine these last weeks. And I will promise to be a good and loyal and dedicated husband. We don't even have to be... physically involved. It can be in name only. Probably more sensible than messy grandiose passion anyway," he added.

Not that he really want the in-name-only thing. But he understood that when he wasn't offering her the love match he knew she really wanted, that he too would have to make compromises.

And he was prepared to do that for the best thing that had happened to him in a very long time.

He watched her carefully for a reaction. She hadn't said anything, she hadn't moved. She just stared at him. And he wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

"I think this is a really practical solution to our... dilemma," he continued. "And the one thing I've always admired about you is how pragmatic you are. After erratic and irresponsible, I really need someone solid and reliable and dependable."

A little frown formed between her brows now and he started to panic again. "I only wish I'd fallen for you all those years ago."

JJ's knuckles whitened as she clenched her flat palms into fists before slowly standing. "Get out," she said.

Ethan blinked, his heart beating a crazy tattoo in his chest. _Crap._ "JJ... maybe I didn't explain myself well enough."

JJ shook her head at him and he noticed that her hands were shaking and she clasped them together in front of her to stop them. "Oh, I think you have."

"So..." He didn't need to be some kind of seer to know she was pissed off, and that he needed to proceed with caution. "You don't think that could work?"

JJ glowered—literally glowered—at him. "I don't want to be _solid_ and _reliable_ and _dependable_ ," she said through stiff lips. "For fuck's sake, you make me sound like a freaking Volvo! I want to be sexy and... _foxy_ and irresistible. I want you to be so undone by me that you can't think straight. I want you to be crazy about me. Like you were crazy about Delia. I love you. And Connie. And I want to be the family that you talked about. But I want it in the fullest sense of the word. Not some platonic _friend_ that ticks all the right boxes."

"Okay," Ethan jumped in, eager to keep the dialogue open, to find a happy medium. "We can negotiate this."

JJ's face screwed up, twisting into a very unladylike snort. "You can't negotiate love," she said and the despair in her voice cut into him with surgical precision. "It either is or it isn't. This isn't just about _me_ being in a safe place where I can love _you_ , Ethan. I need you to _love me back."_

She walked to the door, careful to skirt around him, and pulled it open. "Please, just go."

Ethan blinked. He'd delivered such a practical solution to their problem. A win/win. She should be in his arms right now, kissing him.

He'd offered to marry her _for real_ for crying out loud.

"JJ... please," he said as he joined her at the door.

She looked at him and her gaze was filled with such disdain he couldn't bear it. "I think you need to drink at Joe's in future," she said.

And she didn't wait for him to leave her office, she walked out ahead of him and didn't look back.

Ethan had a sudden hankering for overproof Jack.

## Chapter Fifteen

Ethan tossed and turned into the wee small hours of Sunday morning, finally falling asleep just before four. Being woken by his mobile at five-thirty was not his idea of fun, but he was instantly alert in the way only a parent could be. _Connie?_

She was at Delia's tonight.

He relaxed a little when he recognised the number as one of the police-issue mobiles and not his ex's. Although no-one from the station would ring him at this hour over a triviality. "What's up?" he said, not bothering with any preamble.

It was Carl. "Sorry to wake you, Chief. I'm at the pub. Is JJ with you?"

A cold hand squeezed his gut. "No. She's spending the night there. What's happened?"

"The lights are blazing, there's a cash drawer full of money sitting on the bar, the doors are unlocked and... there's a small amount of something that looks suspiciously like blood next to a full discarded garbage bag in the back alley."

Cold dread trickled down Ethan's spine.

Shane _fucking_ Gallagher.

He knew it as sure as he knew the sun was about to rise. He was already out of bed reaching for his clothes, his heart thundering as his head fill with images of JJ's battered face ten years ago.

"Check room four," he barked into the phone. Not that they were going to find her there all snuggled up in bed. JJ wouldn't have left the pub wide open and money in full view. But Shane could have taken her there.

_Dear God, what if he_...

Ethan shut his eyes. "Break the door down if you have to. In fact check all the rooms. I'll be there straight away."

Fear, icy and jagged, sliced through Ethan's veins. His hands shook as he threw on his clothes. He tried not to think about the possibilities, about their last conversation, about never seeing her again, as he marched down the hallway and out of the house.

He thought about Shane Gallagher instead, and what he was going to do with him when he caught up with the bastard. Because, so help him, if Shane had harmed one hair on JJ's head, he was going to commit conduct _very_ unbecoming of a police officer.

Twenty minutes later the residents of Jumbuck Springs were waking to the main street being turned into something out of a Hollywood movie. Three police cars parked in a row, uniformed officers scurrying around, and yellow crime scene tape cordoning off the pub. A little crowd of people had already gathered to ask what the hell had happened.

"Detective Inspector John Maxwell," Carl said as he handed the phone to Ethan, dragging him back to the present. And the fear gnawing at his gut.

He knew John well. Along with Coop, they'd all been at the academy together and he'd worked closely with John on several cases over the years.

"John," Ethan said, gripping the phone hard, grateful to have the city brass involved so quickly. He'd take every man he could.

"Tell me."

Relief flooded Ethan's system at his friend's focus. He needed that as he got John up to speed. He didn't need commiserations or hand wringing or conjectures. He needed to focus. Letting the fear and the worry take over wasn't going to help JJ.

"She was last seen at five past two. Mitch, one of the staff members at the pub said she was just going to take some rubbish out to the bins then lock the door and go up to her room."

"You think he got her there?"

"Yep," Ethan nodded. He was sure of it. "There's blood in the alley."

"Are you sure."

Ethan rubbed his brow. "Yes." All he could see now was the congealed pool of blood the size of his palm. He shook his head to clear it. "We're putting up road blocks and interviewing everyone who was at the pub last night. You guys are sending backup too but he's got a good four hours head start on us and I'm pretty sure he'd be burning rubber."

"Have you tried her phone?"

"Of course. Not answering."

"Would she have it on her? You didn't find it in the alley or her room?"

"She always has it in her back pocket. Usually on silent when she's at work."

"So we could track the GPS signal."

Ethan straightened up. "Yes... if he hasn't ditched it. Although there's bugger-all mobile coverage out here for triangulation even if he hasn't. We'd need to rely on satellite."

"Right, I'm on it. Give me the number." Ethan reeled it off from memory. "Sit tight. I'll get back to you with hopefully some good news and coordinates."

Ethan spent the next frantic hour leaving no investigative stone unturned, burning up the phone lines, giving orders, pacing up and down the street in front of the pub, feeling utterly freaking useless. Knowing every minute that ticked by put JJ one minute more out of reach.

Going over and over their last conversation, sick to his stomach that it might be their last.

He needed manpower, damn it! Sure, the cavalry were on their way from the big smoke, but they were still probably another ninety minutes out. Thank God for Jarrod, who'd called in every local volunteer SES worker and was currently huddled over maps trying to organise a search.

John rang almost exactly an hour later and he dived on the phone. "Please tell me you have a location."

"Got a pen and a map?"

Ethan held the phone to his shoulder. "Jarrod," he called. "I need the map."

"Is it useful?" Ethan asked John, returning his attention to the phone call.

"Not sure," he said. "It looks like the middle of nowhere to me."

Even though it made sense for Shane to go deep into the bush, Ethan felt another layer of dread pile on top of the others—if he did something to her out there they might never find her. Jarrod, followed by Marcus and Coop, who'd hightailed it to the pub as soon as Ethan had rung them, laid out a massive detailed map of the entire district—all two thousand square kilometres of it—on the hood of Ethan's police vehicle and they plotted the coordinates as John transcribed them.

"Crap," Marcus said as they all stared at the dot in the centre of vast nothingness. "They could be anywhere out there."

Ethan's gaze searched methodically for some clue, some connection, pulling out in ever-widening concentric circles from the dot, the phone still pressed to his ear, refusing to give in to the futility of the empty space, to give the sick frantic feeling inside him any power.

Then suddenly he saw it. "There." He stabbed his finger at two tiny words he'd had to squint to make out. "He's taking her there."

Jarrod peered down. "Baffle Caves?"

Ethan nodded as certainty, pure and rich, filled him with relief. At least they had a focus now. "He visited her a few weeks ago at the pub. Mrs D told me about it. He was going on about their honeymoon. They honeymooned at Baffle Caves."

He spoke into the phone. "Thanks John. I owe you one."

Ethan hung up and looked at the three guys who meant the most to him in the world. Just having them here and on his side filled him with confidence. And he needed it to beat back the simmer of fear lurking just beneath his skin and the ugly what ifs that kept circling.

"It's a three-hour drive and he has a five-hour head start."

Coop nodded, reaching for the map and whisking it off the bonnet. "Okay then. What are we waiting for?"

Coop's police career had been cut short by an armed robber a few days after Elizabeth Weston had died five years ago. He'd been shot in the head and chest and rushed to hospital in a critical condition. But he'd survived and Ethan was beyond grateful to have him by his side.

Once a cop, always a cop.

It wasn't exactly regulation to take members of the public on a manhunt, but he didn't care. These guys had his back, they all bought different skill sets, and this was JJ.

The regulations could go and fuck themselves.

"Right," he nodded. "Can you ring Lacey to pick up Connie from Delia's?" He switched attention to his middle brother. "Marcus, I need you to get your medical kit." Last but not least, Jarrod. "Can you get someone from the SES up to speed and ready for a search if we need them?"

Everyone nodded. "Meet back here in ten."

It took fifteen minutes to get away. A second police vehicle with Carl and another constable, Phil, followed behind for backup. He appointed his deputy, Allan, to take over in Jumbuck Springs, and several other officers were left behind to carry out the other investigative avenues they were following.

Allan had orders from Ethan to maintain regular sit-reps through their CB radio. They were also carrying a satellite phone—essential in the outback.

It was tense inside the vehicle, with no-one saying anything for a good half hour. Ethan, used to outback roads and confident in a four-wheel-drive vehicle was driving at a rapid clip. Still, when they hit a particularly nasty pothole and the whole car shook and then skewed sideways in thick bulldust on the edge of the road, Jarrod who was sitting in the front passenger seat grabbed for the stability of the door handle.

"Steady on there, Fangio. We're no good to JJ dead."

The precarious hold Ethan had been keeping on his equilibrium shattered. Jarrod had just uttered the word he'd been trying to _not_ think about since this nightmare began. "Shut the hell up," he snapped.

In his peripheral vision he saw Marcus and Coop exchange a look and that cranked up his ire even more. "We're going to find her in time," he said through gritted teeth.

Jarrod raised his hands in a show of surrender. "I know, man."

They rode in silence for a bit longer but Jarrod was obviously feeling chatty. "You wanna talk about why JJ went back to the pub in the wee small hours night before last?"

Ethan's fingers tightened around the steering wheel. "How the hell do you know that?" he demanded.

"She didn't exactly leave quietly, Eth."

Ethan grimaced. No she hadn't. The door had banged fit to wake the dead. He was surprised Connie hadn't stirred.

"Might help to talk about it," Marcus said from the back.

Ethan shook his head. He wasn't going to take psychological advice from a guy who'd almost had a breakdown rather than confronting his own PTSD issues earlier in the year. He _did not_ want to talk about it. He didn't want to _think_ about it.

He just wanted her safe and, until then, he wasn't going there—he couldn't.

"It's none of your damn business," he growled.

"Hey, JJ's our friend as well," Marcus said. "She's part of the bloody family for crying out loud, and if you've screwed it up then I think it _is_ my damn business. What the bloody hell did you do wrong?"

Now Ethan was steamed. He hadn't done anything wrong for fuck's sake. "I told her we should get married. For real."

"You _told_ her?" Marcus spluttered. "Dude, even _I_ know that's not the way you do it."

"JJ's not like that," Ethan dismissed.

"Like what?" Jarrod asked incredulously. " _Female_? Please tell me you at least used the words _I love you_."

Ethan stretched out his neck as the vehicle rattled over the corrugations in the dirt track. "Look, I'm really happy all you guys are loved up and found your soulmates. Whoop-de-fucking-do." He caught Coop and Marcus's eyes in the rear-view mirror. "But I've done the love thing and that was a disaster, so now I'm after something different. I need someone who's solid and reliable and dependable in my life—just like JJ."

Marcus groaned in the back and Coop shook his head and looked out the window. "Oh Jesus," Jarrod said. "Call off the search now, she's probably just faked her own disappearance to get away from you."

Ethan's jaw clenched. He didn't need this lecture right now. "Can we just concentrate on finding her first?" he retorted.

"Damn right we will," Marcus said. "And when we do, you have some major sucking up to do, because I swear to God, if you don't marry that girl, for _real_ real, then Juanita knows about a dozen blokes who'd be gagging to and she'll introduce JJ to all of them."

Ethan's knuckles went white. _Over his dead body._

JJ was trying to stay calm. But spending hours rattling around in the boot of Shane's shit-box vehicle, her hands and feet tied, and the last few hours listening to him ramble on and on about how good their life had been—how good it could still be—while he waved a gun in her face, wasn't conducive to calm.

Her head throbbed from where he had jumped her in the alley with a thump to the back of her skull, and her nerves were stretched so taut she flinched at every erratic movement he made.

She was fairly sure Shane wouldn't use the gun. She didn't think he meant to kill her; in fact, from his rambling she was sure he really hadn't thought about this too much at all. But she knew from bitter experience that he could hurt her. And the way he kept talking about _when it got dark_ , about _their night together_ , didn't fill her with confidence.

Add to that the fact that he'd spent hours building a massive campfire in front of her and it was fair to say she was pretty freaked out. She was determined to stay calm, to not show him her fear, but she wasn't sure if he was building a heat source or a funeral pyre, which only added to the freaking.

Thick ropes bound her to a nearby tree, where she had a ringside seat to watch all his activity, and every time he'd wandered away to find more wood, like now, she'd actively been scraping the rope against the bark, trying to fray it enough to snap it. Her wrists, raw from rope burn, stung and bitched but she pushed through the pain.

She wasn't sure what she was going to do when she was finally free, but she knew she had to be smart, act on her intelligence and what she knew from being a country girl—not her fear.

Running without a plan was pointless. The Australian outback was harsh and dangerous. She could die out here if she got lost while trying to escape. And she was damned if she was going to escape from one dangerous situation only to end up in another. At least she knew the surroundings a little. Shane had set them up away from the main area, the same spot they'd camped at on their honeymoon, so at least she knew the way to the road.

At the moment, judging by the sun, it was somewhere near noon—so she had to keep her wits about her. Shane had started drinking and she hoped that by tonight he'd be too pissed and hopefully sleepy to be any kind of a threat. Then she could snap her ropes, steal the keys and get the hell out of Dodge.

He'd offered her food and drink and she'd taken both. Apart from the humiliating experience of having to urinate in front of him earlier, she knew that out here, if she had to make a run for it without the aid of a vehicle—which she would if he so much as laid a finger on her—she was going to need to be well hydrated if she hoped to survive.

She was conscious of her phone in her back pocket as she rubbed the ropes against the bark. She hoped like hell all those cop shows she'd seen on TV were right and they could locate her position that way. She was pleased Shane was either too self-involved or too stupid to have thought to frisk her for it.

Had they discovered her missing by now?

Did Ethan know? Had he put two and two together?

A lump rose in her throat as she thought about him, but she swallowed it down—she would not cry. Tears were no use to her out here. They were just a surer step towards dehydration.

She'd been so angry and righteous with him after their _talk_ yesterday. And it just seemed so bloody petty now. Right now being his solid, reliable, dependable _wife_ sounded like a bloody dream. She'd give anything to be safe at home with him and Connie. Even in name only.

If— _when_ —she got out of this, she was going to tell him she'd changed his mind. There were certain things you realised when you were staring down the barrel of a gun. _Take your marriage proposals from men you love where you could get them_ , was one. Ethan had been right—they could make a good life together. And faced with this nightmare—it sounded pretty damn good at the moment.

If it meant it was always going to be one-sided then so be it. She just hoped to God she hadn't ruined her chances.

She could hear Shane coming back and she immediately ceased her activity. He leered at her as he approached and threw another armful of kindling on the massive pile.

"Gotta make sure you're warm tonight," he laughed and JJ's skin crawled. "We're going to be happy together again," he said, pausing to take a swig out of a half-empty bottle of rum, his big ugly gun shoved in his front waistband. "Mark my words. Just you and me forever."

A wave of bile rose in JJ's throat and she had to concentrate hard to stop it from fountaining out her mouth. Why had she ever thought him attractive? His low forehead and close-set eyes looked Neanderthal-ish now. He may be erratic and well on his way to inebriation, but he was a mean drunk. Tied to a tree she was an easy target.

Ethan cut the engine about one kilometre out from the caves. He didn't want to alert Shane to their arrival—they'd walk the remaining distance and leave Phil behind with the cars. Should urgent transport be required they could radio him and he'd be with them in minutes.

"You sure he's here?" Marcus asked as they dragged gear out of the vehicle.

Ethan, who was looking through binoculars at the empty car park area, shook his head. "No. But it makes sense. And my gut tells me yes."

Marcus nodded. "Good enough for me."

They set out, keeping off the road in case Shane was watching. In ten minutes they were scrambling over the first stony incline of the mainly subterranean cave system. From a distance it looked like a large cluster of boulders that seemed to rise out of nowhere, a rocky outcrop fringed by heavy scrub.

They kept close, navigating quietly as they methodically searched the area. Suddenly they heard a gunshot and they all dropped to the ground. Ethan felt physically ill.

Please, dear God, please let her be okay.

A loud snorting laugh rent the air next and, with his heart just about beating out his chest, Ethan crawled in the direction of the noise, peering over the top of a boulder to a clearing about ten gently sloping metres below. He was conscious of the others following suit.

And there he was—Shane Gallagher. Bottle in one hand, gun in the other, weaving unsteadily on his feet. Ethan frantically searched for JJ but the bastard fired another shot, straight into the air, and they all instinctively ducked.

"What the fuck is he doing?" Jarrod whispered.

"He's pissed," Ethan muttered.

"Can you see JJ?" Marcus asked.

After a moment Ethan stuck his head up again, his gaze resuming the search. A massive pile of what he assumed was firewood filled his vision and to the left of it, a flash of colour caught his eye.

JJ.

Ethan went hot then cold as relief warred with rage at the sight of her tied to a tree. Dried blood crusted the side of her face and neck, matting her hair and staining her shirt. Her clothes were filthy. Her eyes were shut.

Was she unconscious?

She was so freaking still. Her skin was deathly pale in stark contrast to the crusted blood forming garish red rivulets down one side of her face. Ethan looked away, looked down at his feet, breathed out a shaky breath.

"Tree to the left of the wood pile," he muttered.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and knew it was Coop.

Shane's voice carried easily and Ethan peered over again as he said, "I'll be back," to JJ, waving his gun around like it was some freaking toy.

Then he saw it. JJ moved. She opened her eyes. Relief flooded in, trembling through his limbs. She still looked awful but she was conscious—she was alive. And then something else happened, an enormous weight lifted off his chest and a rush of something else flooded in. Light and airy and so freaking demanding it took his breath away.

He knew what it was without ever having experienced it before.

Love.

A huge overwhelming tidal wave of it, rising up to grab him by the throat and squeeze. _So this was how it felt._ Because he sure hadn't felt this all-consuming emotion for Delia. Not even in the beginning.

It was like he was looking at her for the first time.

His JJ. His _love_.

And in that moment he knew he could never live another second without her. In his life, in his bed, in his heart.

"Plan?" Marcus asked, interrupting the revelation of the century.

Ethan knew exactly what he had to do. "Go and get JJ. Kill Shane."

Marcus and Jarrod exchanged a look. "Okay," said Coop. "How about Carl stays here and covers us, you and Marcus get JJ, and Jarrod and I deal with Shane."

"No." Ethan shook his head. "I want him."

"Ethan," Jarrod said.

"You need to get JJ," Coop reiterated, standing his ground. "She's all that matters right now."

"Okay, fine." He unholstered his firearm and handed it to Coop. "Take my gun and shoot him when you see him."

Ethan knew he was talking crazy. That he was being irrational. That handing over his weapon and sanctioning murder was so far from the cool, calm, law-abiding cop he was. That it could put him in jail.

But right now he just didn't care. JJ's head and clothes were covered in blood and she was tied to a fucking tree. Rage roared like a bushfire through his veins.

"No," Coop said firmly, taking Ethan's gun and handing it to Carl. "I don't need a weapon. Neither do you. He can barely stand upright and no-one's getting dead today. None of us are going to go to jail for that scumbag—especially not you. You've got Connie to think about, remember? You're a father. Do you think JJ's going to be impressed by you jeopardising that?"

Ethan hated how rational Coop sounded. How _cop-_ like his friend sounded, when he'd been reduced to some kind of avenging animal.

"She needs you, man," Marcus said, his voice low.

Ethan swallowed hard on the fiery ball of hate lodged in his throat. Marcus was right. He had to concentrate on JJ. "Fine. But," he eyeballed Carl, "if he should resist arrest, draw his weapon, run away... you have my permission to shoot him. Dead."

Carl swallowed as he drew his weapon and holstered Ethan's. "Yes, Chief."

They called in the backup vehicle, then left their position and quietly scrambled down the slope. Coop and Jarrod peeled off in the direction that Shane had headed. Marcus, lugging the medical kit over his shoulder, and Ethan headed straight for JJ who, now Shane had ambled off, was frantically working at her ties.

"JJ," Ethan hissed as he hit the flat and ran towards her.

She looked up from her ministrations with a start, her face a mixture of shock and surprise. " _Ethan?_ " she gasped. "Oh my God, Ethan."

Her voice cracked as Ethan skidded to a halt in front of her and threw himself down, enveloping her upper body in his arms, clutching her close, his heart beating so hard, a pain swelling in his chest so big he thought he was going to have a heart attack.

She was really okay. She was safe. She was his.

Touching her, holding her, made the pallor and the blood less frightening. She felt like JJ.

"Oh, God," he said, holding her against his chest then pulling back to look into her face, framing it in his hands, dropping a kiss on her forehead, her cheek, her nose. "I'm so, so sorry," he said. "I was such an idiot. I love you so much and I can't believe it took seeing you like this for me to realise it."

JJ blinked at him. "You... do?"

"Of course I do," he said, kissing her mouth this time, a deep reassuring kiss. She was okay, she was really okay. "I think I have for a long time now but I was just too put off by the whole Delia thing to realise. But I do. And it's not because you're dependable and reliable... although you are... it's because you're _foxy_ and _irresistible_ and you've totally _undone_ me."

JJ stared for a moment and then she smiled and then she laughed, her voice croaky. She leaned in to reach for him but the rope yanked her backwards and she yelped.

Marcus cleared his throat from behind. "I'll cut her loose, shall I?" he asked drily, stepping around the back of the trunk and quickly slicing through the ropes.

She winced as she was freed and Ethan helped her bring her arms to the front. Her rope burns made him want to break things, specifically Shane's face, but he pushed that away as he gently pulled her forward, his palms cupping her shoulders.

"I'm pretty sure I don't look remotely foxy at the moment," she said, her voice muffled against his shirt.

"You're safe," Ethan murmured, not giving a damn about foxy. "That's all I care about for now."

Marcus crouched down beside them, dropping his backpack. "Hey there, JJ. You sure know how to get the Weston men jumping."

JJ gave him a half-smile. "Been doing it since I was a kid."

"How about you ask your boyfriend here to let you go long enough so I can look you over? You copped a bit of a bump to the head I see."

JJ nodded slowly. "It looks worse than it is, I think. Got a hell of a headache though."

Marcus looked at Ethan. But now he had her he didn't want to let her go. "I need to get in there," Marcus said, unzipping the front pocket of his pack.

Ethan held her a little closer. "It's okay," JJ said to Ethan. "I'm not going anywhere."

Ethan kissed the top of her head, letting her go reluctantly, getting to his feet, removing himself from her vicinity altogether. She cried out when Marcus inspected her rope burns and it made him mad as hell again.

The backup police vehicle pulled up a few metres away and Ethan watched as a triumphant Jarrod and Coop rounded a wall of rock with a belligerent, struggling, cursing Shane. It took all of Ethan's willpower to stay where he was as they handed Shane over to Phil, who cuffed him and pushed him unceremoniously into the back of the car and shut the door.

Ethan wanted to reef the door open, yank Shane out and smash his fist into the son-of-a-bitch's face. But Coop was right. Spending time in jail over Shane Gallagher would be insane.

"Okay, we're done here," Marcus announced behind him, and Ethan returned eagerly to JJ's side. "I definitely think she needs a CT when she gets back to Jumbuck Springs, just to be safe, but I think she's relatively unscathed."

_Unlike her last brush with Shane._ Marcus didn't say it but Ethan didn't doubt for a moment that they were all thinking it.

Ethan and Marcus helped JJ to her feet and as soon as she was upright, he pulled her close, relief riding him.

"I love you," she said.

Ethan's heart soared. He looked down at her. Marcus had cleared most of the dried blood away and she was looking more human, more like JJ. He kissed her gently, so very gently, on her mouth, unlike last time when relief had erased any kind of finesse. "I love you too."

He folded her in his arms again, knowing that he never wanted to let her go. "Does this mean I don't have to drink at Joe's now?"

She looked up at him and smiled. "This means you _never_ drink anywhere else _but_ The Stockman."

He chuckled. "I wouldn't dream of it." Then he pushed a lock of hair off her forehead. "Wherever you are is where I want to be."

She sighed. "Good answer."

## Epilogue

_December 24_ th _6pm._

JJ laughed as Connie jumped up to take her Christmas present from Jarrod, who was dressed up as Santa. He was hanging off a fire truck—complete with snowy-white beard and pillow stuffed up his shirt—surrounded by a few hundred kids who had all gathered at the traditional Jumbuck Springs Christmas Eve party at the footy grounds.

It was a highly anticipated event, organised for the local kids by all the community service groups. Every child got a present, and a bunch of fun activities were arranged. The afternoon culminated in Santa Claus riding in on the fire engine, ringing a bell and _ho, ho, ho'ing_.

Selena was down there with a television crew, filming it as part of the regional Christmas wrap-up for Channel Four. Marcus and Coop were picking up the cones on the field from the game of touch footy they'd organised. Lacey had talked Juanita into giving her a hand at the face painting table, so they could talk about wedding dress stuff for her and Marcus's impending New Year nuptials.

JJ and Ethan were sitting under a nearby tree watching it all. She was sitting between his legs, her knees drawn up, her back to his stomach. His legs were drawn up too, his denim clad thighs bracketing hers, her hands on his knees. The day had been a scorcher—still was. It was probably too hot to be sitting so close but she didn't care.

She was with Ethan. They were _together_. And she wasn't ever letting him go.

"Connie looks happy," Ethan mused, his lips near her temple, his breath disturbing her hair, his fingers rubbing at the fading marks on her wrists as if he could erase them and the memory of them if he did it often enough.

His daughter was smiling at her mother as they opened the present together. Things seemed back on track with the two of them, now Delia had dropped the custody claim.

"Oh, she always wanted one of those," he murmured as Connie pulled a cowgirl hat out of the wrapper and plonked it on her head.

JJ nodded. Connie did seem pretty excited about it. "I reckon I've got something that she wants more," she said, smiling to herself as she traced patterns on Ethan's knees.

"Oh yes?" He nuzzled lazily down the side of her face to her ear. "You got contacts with One Direction?"

JJ laughed. "No." His warm breath scattered goosebumps down her neck, and she shut her eyes and enjoyed it for a beat or two, her pulse picking up at the news she'd been sitting on since this morning.

She was thrilled. She knew Connie would be thrilled. She only hoped Ethan was too.

"A baby sister." His lips stilled and she held her breath. "Or brother, I guess."

She turned in his arms slightly so she could see him better, so she could read his face as the news sank in. "You're pregnant?"

JJ chewed her lip and nodded. "I did the test this morning. Twice."

He didn't say anything for a moment and anxiety joined the excitement that had been bubbling in her all day.

Then he smiled. Big. "Really?"

JJ smiled back, feeling a rush of relief dizzying in its intensity. "Really."

"Oh my God." His hand slid onto her belly as he stared at her incredulously. "That's... _wonderful_. I... can't believe it."

"Yeah. You know that thing where they tell you no time in your cycle is safe to have unprotected sex?" She grinned. "Turns out they're right."

He chuckled and hugged her hard and JJ melted into him. She'd have never thought her life could have got any better but she'd been wrong.

"I love you," he said, dropping a kiss on her temple. "I love you so much."

"You're not... mad?" she asked, pulling back slightly. "This wasn't exactly planned and well... you've been there before."

He shook his head. "Are you kidding? Connie's the best thing I've ever done. Being a dad is the best thing I've ever done. And now I get to do it all again. With you. _And_ her." He cupped her face with his hands. "My life is complete."

Tears welled in JJ's eyes as he kissed her long and slow, her crazy-glued heart miraculously whole again.

"Look what I got—" Connie's chatter cut off as she realised she'd caught them kissing. "Are you two ever going to stop doing that?"

They broke apart guiltily, but Connie was beaming down at them, her princess cowgirl hat complete with its own tiara sitting atop her head. She looked pretty damn happy about her father and JJ kissing.

"Cool hat," Ethan said as Connie sat beside them. "Santa knows you well."

Connie sighed. "Yeah. But it's not as exciting when you know its Uncle Jarrod under that beard."

JJ laughed. Connie had known about Santa for a couple of years now. "No, I guess not."

"You want exciting?" Ethan asked. "We've got exciting."

Ethan glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. JJ knew it was probably wiser to keep the pregnancy a secret until after the first trimester. She was thirty-five, statistically more likely to miscarry or have complications. But damned if she didn't want to tell the whole world.

She nodded at Ethan, her excitement skyrocketing again in anticipation.

Connie's little face lit up. "You set the wedding date?"

He shook his head. "Better than that."

She frowned. "You're going to Paris for your honeymoon as well and taking me?"

He laughed. "Better than that."

"Daddy." Connie rolled her eyes. " _Nothing_ is better than Paris."

"Oh yeah? What about a baby sister?"

Connie's face was a picture as her jaw dropped and she squealed. She stared at JJ. "You're having a baby?"

JJ nodded. "Due in September next year."

Connie leapt up and did a little jig and JJ's heart just about burst out of her chest.

Connie collapsed beside them again, throwing her arms around both of them. It made everything that much hotter, but JJ just laughed and held on in the middle of her big 'ol Weston sandwich of love.

"This is _the best_ Christmas ever," Connie whispered, wonder in her voice, squeezing tight.

"The best," JJ agreed.

The very, very best.

The End
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An Exclusive Excerpt from Seduced by the Baron

Buy now or turn the page to start reading your next Amy Andrews romance, _Seduced by the Baron_ of the Fairy Tales of New York series!
Seduced by the Baron  
©Copyright 2015 Amy Andrews

It was official. Rafael Quartermaine was freezing his gnads off. Too much longer out on the streets of Brooklyn and his ability to father a child at some stage in the future was going to be seriously impaired.

He hunched further into his jacket as he picked up the pace, the tops of his ears burning, his gloveless fingers curling deep into the pockets. He needed gloves. And a better scarf. Maybe a pair of long johns for under his Levis.

Minus five the CNN weather chick had said this morning. Or, more correctly, _twenty-three._ He really needed to wrap his head around the whole Celsius/Fahrenheit thing. But whatever way it was measured, New York in February was brutal! A far cry from a sweltering Australian summer.

Cold enough to freeze the tits off a bull as his old bushie grandfather would say.

For a moment Raf almost wished he was back home straddling his surfboard, the hot Aussie sun on his back, his feet dangling in the ocean, waiting in a line of surfers for the next big one to come in. Instead of here, killing off his sperm cells.

At the very least he should have decided to launch into the west coast market. It was warmer than this in California and he'd been there several times since his mother had moved back to the place of her birth after the divorce.

_And_ they had some wicked surf.

But he'd been looking for the right pub to launch Baron lager on the US market and Mercedes Hernandez, an old friend whose opinion he valued highly, had persuaded him that Sully's in Brooklyn was the _perfect_ neighborhood pub. _And_ she could get him an intro to the owner.

So here he was. In New York. In February.

_Freezing his gnads off_.

But at least now he could see the sign up ahead proclaiming Sullivan's to not only be open _and_ established since 1950 but a mere half a block away. Raf sped up, reaching for the brass handle on the heavy wooden door in under a minute, his fingers almost adhering to the cold metal as he yanked it open.

He paid little heed to the thick welcome mat at his feet or the dark wood paneling that lent the interior an old world charm, he just shut his eyes as warmth enveloped him like a long lost lover. His fingers and ears tingled as blood returned to his extremities. He had a feeling it would take longer for his balls to drop back down from inside him but it was a start.

He opened his eyes to find himself being thoroughly scrutinized. Three elderly guys sitting at the end of the long wooden bar, looked surprised to see him. Not that he could blame them – who would come out into this weather without good reason?

They continued to stare much to Raf's amusement. Clearly they weren't used to strange faces around here. A check in the pro column. A bar that attracted loyal regulars would be a good test market for him.

"G'day, gentlemen," he murmured cheerfully. "Bloody cold out there today."

"It's not so bad," the nearest one said. "Spring's on its way."

_Jesus._ If this was spring on its way, Raf was pleased he'd missed full-on winter.

"Fire over there," another one said indicating the crackling flames with a nod of his head.

Sounded pretty bloody good to Raf. "Thanks," he said, nodding and headed in the direction of the fireplace.

The long wooden bar ran down one side of the pub. Stools with what appeared to be red leather seats were placed down the length of it about a foot apart. There must have been twenty at least. No one was behind the bar so Raf made a beeline for the massive fireplace past about a dozen dark panelled booths sporting the same red leather seats.

The orange flames danced behind the grate as he pulled his hands out of his pockets and held them close reveling in the heat licking up his arms and bathing his front. Reveling in the fact he was beginning to feel more like a human and less like a popsicle.

A large portrait of JFK hung over the mantle and he absently noted the tiled surround boasted shamrocks. He swiveled his head to the right noting an area with about a dozen small tables and chairs, their dark wood melding in with the overall cozy appeal. In the far left corner was a step up to what appeared to be a small stage. An upright piano that looked like it had seen better days fitted snugly against the wall. To the far right was an open door through which he could just glimpse a corridor and a staircase. The sign above the door indicated the location of the restrooms.

Satisfied with what he saw, Raf returned his attention to the fire. Sully's was cozy. Just the kind of pub he had in mind.

Mercy had been right.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't hear you come in. Can I get you something?"

Raf turned at the sweet, husky inquiry to find a woman with wild brown curls smiling at him all open and easy. She was wearing jeans that clung in all the right places and a black t-shirt with a Sullivan's logo and _The Best Beer In Brooklyn_ stamped right across her breasts. She looked like a tropical mirage in the middle of the arctic and all the places that had felt cold only seconds ago flooded with warmth.

Blood flowed again. _Everywhere._ His balls suddenly dropped right back into place.

Raf checked his watch. Mercy wasn't due for another half hour but it was after midday...His gaze drifted to her t-shirt as he walked towards her. "Looks like I'd better have a beer."

"Oh," she said and he could have sworn her cheeks turned a shade pinker. Her curls flopped forward a little to hide her face as she reached for a glass. "What's your poison?"

Feeling more than a little warm now, Raf shrugged out of his coat, then his jacket and unwound his scarf as he pulled up a bar stool.

The view up closer was very fine indeed.

"What lager would you recommend?" he asked as he pushed up the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows and leaned into the polished smoothness of the bar in all its dark, grainy glory.

Her gaze strayed to his bared arms and seemed to linger for a moment before she dragged it back to his face. She smiled at him again. "Guinness."

Raf laughed. Pretty barmaid with quick wit and flirty tone – another check in the pro column. Get her on side and she could be his best asset as far as pushing his beer went.

"You don't like lager?"

"We have ten beers on tap here. Two of them are lagers. You do the math."

Normally them would be fighting words for Raf but the devil danced in her eyes and he knew better than to rise to the bait. He liked her voice though. The slight husky quality of it softened her accent to a nice warm hum.

"Well, I guess given that I'm in an Irish pub I have no choice but to try the Guinness."

She nodded. "Good choice. When in an Irish pub in New York do what the Irish do I always say. Got a preference?"

Raf shook his head. "Whatever's the most popular." It paid to know the competition after all.

Raf watched her as she busied herself with his drink. Her technique at pouring Guinness was perfect – angling the glass, not letting the tap touch it in any way as she filled it three quarters then setting it down to rest for a bit.

His gaze roved over her face as she waited patiently for the beer to settle. She had a cute nose, dark blue eyes and chipmunk cheeks. She wasn't wearing any makeup and he liked that he could see the _real_ her.

She had an interesting face. It wasn't classically beautiful but it had a certain something about it that was instantly fascinating. There was no pretention about it, just nicely assembled, including her mouth which seemed just right – not too big or too small, sitting perfectly right in the middle there. It looked like it laughed a lot.

Probably kissed a lot too.

And then there was her hair.

He'd bet money she hated it – he'd never met a woman with curly hair that didn't hate it passionately. But it was the most glorious mahogany tumble, curls kicking around her face and brushing over her shoulders. He had the insane urge to reach out and pull on one and see how far it would unwind.

An even crazier urge to find out how good they'd look spread on his pillow. His blood stirred at the thought and his body warmed another degree.

When the beer had settled to her satisfaction she topped it up and handed it over. Raf pulled out a note but she waved the money aside. "Converting lager drinkers is my sport."

Raf laughed as he pocketed the bill. "Never." He took a moment to admire the perfect head of foam before taking a sip of the cold, creamy beer, flicking his tongue out to catch the froth he knew would be decorating his upper lip.

His belly tightened as her gaze briefly followed the action before she quickly looked away and fiddled with some glasses.

"It's good," he said, placing it down on the bar. "Smooth. There's almost a chocolatey consistency to it."

It reminded him of her hair – rich and complex.

"You've got a good nose."

Raf smiled at the husky compliment deciding to omit telling her his beer background. Or that she had a lovely nose too.

And an even lovelier mouth.

"You don't sound like you're from around these parts?"

"You've got a good ear," he said, with a grin. "I'm from Australia. Sydney."

She looked at his arms again then back at him. "Let me guess. You spend all your time at the beach. Bondi, that's in Sydney, right?"

He laughed. "Coogee, actually. But close enough."

"And are you here on business or pleasure?"

"Business." He put his drink down as the idea of indulging in a little something else took root. "But I could be persuaded."

Flirting came easy to Raf. Flirting with this woman especially. So it was surprising to see her startled owlish blink as her hands stilled on the glasses.

Interesting...

"Coney Island's fun," she said after a beat or two, her unadorned fingers fiddling with the glasses again.

Raf couldn't work out if it was a polite I'm-working-don't-bother-me blowoff or a serious not-interested one.

Nor why it bothered him so much.

"Thanks." He took another sip of his Guinness. "I'll keep it in mind."

She glanced in the direction of the door as if she was hoping for the relief of a customer but it remained stubbornly shut. When she dragged her gaze back to him she was clearly torn between wanting to flee and good manners that dictated she stay and talk with her customer.

He found it surprisingly endearing.

"Where are you staying?" she asked.

Then she blushed and looked like she wanted to take it back in case he got the wrong idea. He chuckled at her consternation. It was a reasonable question to ask. Just because he'd flirted with her a little didn't mean he couldn't tell the difference between genuine interest in his sleeping arrangements and small talk.

"In Manhattan. At the Marriott Marquis."

"On Times Square?" She kicked up an eyebrow, clearly surprised, her awkwardness vanishing as quickly as it had arrived. "And just how did you stumble across _our_ establishment? We're a little off the beaten path."

"Apart from being convenient shelter from the freezing cold you mean?"

"Oh," she said, her expression deadpan. "Is it cold out?"

Raf laughed. "Just a tad. Actually a friend recommended Sully's, I'm meeting her here." He checked his watch. "She shouldn't be too much longer."

A little light of hope, of potential, inside Faith stuttered and died in that instant. Of course there would be a woman. A _friend_. The guy was a tall, blonde, gorgeous Australian. With crazy-good stubble a shade or two darker than his sandy hair, shoulders wide enough to hold up the world and beautifully tanned and muscled forearms, he probably had a harem of women servicing his flirtatious ways.

Her eyes locked on his hands, the network of bulging blue veins was fascinating, like something from an art textbook. A sudden urge to sketch his hands and forearms accosted her. The golden skin, the blonde hairs, the prominent vasculature....

Greek statue meets flesh and blood man.

So very male. So very hot.

"Ah," the guy with the arms said, dragging her gaze back to his face. But he wasn't looking at her, he was looking towards the door. At his _friend._ "Here she is." He waved a hand at her. "Mercy. Over here!"

_Mercy?_ Faith frowned, turning her head towards the curvy Argentinian she knew so well, striding their way, shedding her coat, her hips swinging in her tight jeans and knee high boots. Her hair swung like a glossy curtain and even after all these years Faith still envied Mercy her gorgeous, long, locks.

She was in New York studying for her MBA but if she failed that she could always get a job as a model for shampoo commercials.

"Mercy?" she said.

"Surprise," she said, grinned at Faith, only the slightest hint of an accent slanting her speech. She stepped up onto the low brass railing at her feet that ran down the length of the bar and leaned as far forward as she could, one leg kicking out behind her for balance.

Faith leaned across too, accepting the double-cheeked kiss on auto-pilot. Then Mercy turned to the hunky Australian.

"Rafael," she said as she went up on tippy toe and bestowed the same favor on both of his cheeks.

_Rafael_. His name was Rafael.

But how on earth did Mercy know this guy? And why was she meeting him? Of course, had Mercy not been deliriously in love with Seb, Faith would totally get why. The tall, tanned Australian and the sexy Argentinian made for a gorgeous pairing – like two tropical birds.

But Mercy was, indeed, very much in love.

In fact, within the last year Faith had not only reconnected with her old school friends but _all_ of them had paired off and were in stable relationships.

Except her.

Mercy had Seb, Dawn had Finn and Zel had Ty.

It was hard to believe it had happened in such a short space of time. Even harder to believe that Dawn and Zel had hooked up with two of her _brothers_. And Mercy had snagged _Zel'_ s brother.

Her mother had always told Faith that one day she'd meet a man and she'd know. She'd just know. _That's how it was with your father._ But many years later Faith had given up on the whole _one-day-my-prince-will-come_ romantic bullshit.

And this last year in particular?

She was beginning to feel like she was _always_ going to be the bridesmaid.

"I see you two have already met," Mercy said.

"Not officially, no," he said and held out his hand to her. "I'm Rafael Quartermaine."

His broad accent with flattened vowels rolled over her as did the warmth from his hand. She glanced down at it, fascinated anew by the veins. She wanted to trace her finger along them, memorize each one for later when she _would_ be getting out her sketch pad but she forced herself to drop it instead.

"With a ph like the painter?"

"With an f. But most people just call me Raf."

"Faith," she said. "Faith Sullivan."

"Ah," he said, his eyes lighting up. They were a clear aquamarine that reminded her of the ocean. They suited his blonde coloring. "You're the owner's daughter?"

"That's right," Mercy jumped in. "Although Faith pretty much runs the whole place single-handedly, don't you?"

Faith knew Mercy meant it as a compliment but, as always, she felt the need to protect her ailing father's positon as boss and head of the household. Even though she'd _also_ been running the household since his first heart attack just before she'd been due to start her fine arts degree at Columbia.

James Patrick Sullivan, or JP to his friends, was a proud man and Sully's had been pretty much his everything since her mother had died. _His_ father had established it not long after immigrating from Dublin in the fifties and Pop clung to it with a nostalgia for the old country that had only become more ardent.

Her father was determined to leave a lasting legacy. "It's a family affair," she said vaguely.

"She's being too modest," Mercy said, dismissively. "The whole pub would fall apart without her. She loves this place like crazy."

Faith smiled at Mercy. Her friend was right – she did love this place. Deeply. She had, after all, lived in this big old pub in this working class neighborhood in the Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn for her entire life. Some of her best memories were encapsulated within these four walls. And her mother was also here in every nook and cranny.

She loved Sully's. So why, suddenly, wasn't it enough?

Faith glanced at Rafael. He was watching her intently, a little line tugging two sandy-colored eyebrows together. She wondered if he could see her disquiet? See the growing despair she felt that she was going to be stuck here forever, a spinster barmaid, her fine arts degree a distant ambition.

She plastered a smile on her face. "Drink?" she asked Mercy.

Mercy glanced at Raf's beer. "You're drinking Guinness?" She tutted playfully. "Isn't that sacrilege to a lager man?"

"Good beer is good beer," he said with a grin. "And when in an Irish pub..."

"Absolutely," Mercy agreed. "I'll have the usual."

Faith grabbed a half pint glass and pulled Mercy's favorite brand of Guinness. If they stayed for a second, Faith knew Mercy would switch to orange juice thanks to her strict self-imposed, one-drink policy she'd developed after growing up in and around the wine industry.

Not to mention the Great Altar Wine Debacle.

Faith eavesdropped on their conversation while she waited for the beer to settle. They obviously knew each other reasonably well. Faith wondered just _how_ well and was surprised to find it bothered her. She placed the beer in front of Mercy and once again waved the payment away.

"On the house."

Mercy tried to protest. "You can get the first round tomorrow night," Faith insisted.

On the second Thursday of every month all four women got together at Sully's for a girl's night. Faith had worried that it would stop now her friends were in relationships but the tradition was going strong.

"Salud," Mercy said raising her glass to Rafael.

"Salud," he responded, tapping the rim of his glass to hers.

Faith was excruciatingly aware of him as he drank. Aware that his sandy-blonde hair was a little longer on the top than the sides. Aware of a tiny little scar beneath his chin that cut a smooth swath through the rough of his stubble. Aware of the way his gaze kept straying to her t-shirt and how he'd tried to flirt with her and the way he'd looked at her before as if he could see past her _I'm-fine_ exterior to the _not-fine_ beneath.

Aware that he was from outside her world and just how damn enticing that made him.

_Lordy._ This was bad.

A man from outside the neighborhood paid her a little attention and she was already thinking of...what? Running away with him? Preposterous. She couldn't leave. Not when her father, the pub, relied on her so much.

"Is JP around?" Mercy asked as she licked Guinness from her mouth like she was born to it – not bad for a wine girl.

Faith tensed. "He's upstairs. He was feeling a little... tired earlier."

Her father's worsening heart condition caused its usual flurry of panic inside her. The doctor had increased his medication last week but Faith worried about him constantly. He was seventy-four and looking every one of those years. She'd already lost one parent. She couldn't bear the thought of losing another.

"You think he might be up to meeting Raf?"

Faith frowned. "Meet Raf?"

"He has a proposal he thinks your dad might be interested in."

"A proposal?" She looked from one to the other. Mercy looked excited, her dark eyes shining but Faith had a very bad feeling. Pop had a real soft spot for Mercy but she tried to keep the stress of decision making off her father's shoulders as much possible these days.

"I own a string of successful micro-breweries in Australia and New Zealand. Small scale, boutique beers that kind of thing but I have a product I want to go global with. It's called Baron lager and I want to start by launching in the US market which is why I'd like to talk to your father about the possibility of putting it on tap here for a trial period."

Faith blinked. _What the fuck?_ "You want to launch an _Australian lager_ here in _Brooklyn_ , in an _Irish_ pub?"

"Yes." He smiled and if she hadn't been feeling so utterly confused and, frankly, horrified, Faith may well have been swept off her feet. "Of course I'd be here to keep a close eye on how it's going during the trial. I wouldn't expect you guys to do all the heavy lifting. Do you think he'll be amenable to meeting with me?"

Rafael, here? Keeping a close eye on things? Looking like that and smiling like that and wanting to put an _Australian_ beer into Sullivan's?

Messing with _tradition?_

It would kill her father for sure.

And God only knew what would become of her with him in such close proximity. No," she said. "No, he would not."

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## More Books by Amy Andrews

The darling of the Aussie small screen, Edwina Calloway, has always had a thing for her ex co-star the hunky Justin Wilde – even before he took off to Tinsel town and became a Hollywood heartthrob. But now Justin's back in Oz...

Can they survive a five-day road trip, just the two of them alone in the car, under intense media scrutiny without finally getting naked and doing the Wilde thing? And if they can't, what happens when Justin heads back to Hollywood?

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## About the Author

Multi-award winning and USA Today bestselling author **Amy Andrews** is an Aussie who has written fifty romances from novellas to category to single-title in both the traditional and digital markets for a variety of publishers. Her first love is steamy contemporary romance that makes her readers tingle, laugh and sigh. At the age of 16, she met a guy she instantly knew she was going to marry. She just smiles when people tell her insta-love books are unrealistic because she did marry that man and, twenty odd years later, they're still living out their happily ever after. Amy works part-time as a PICU nurse and spent six years on the national executive of Romance Writers of Australia where she organized two national conferences and undertook a two year term as president. She loves good books, fab food, great wine and frequent travel – preferably all four together. She lives on acreage on the outskirts of Brisbane with a gorgeous mountain view but secretly wishes it was the hillsides of Tuscany.

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