Australian Escape: Her Hottest Summer Yet / The Heat of the Night

“Okay, then?” That was it? That was all she got? For basically telling the guy he turned her to putty?

He took a step her way but Avery planted her feet into the floor so as not to sway back. “Was there something else?”

“Yeah. You’re an ass, Jonah North. A gorgeous ass, one I can’t seem to get out of my head no matter how much I try, but still an ass. I’ll see you ’round.”

She turned and walked away, waving a hand over her shoulder that might have had a certain finger raised. But she’d given her apology and that was all that was important. She had the high road. He only had her pride.

Then suddenly he was walking beside her.

“So,” he said, “I was just about to head up to the Cape to check on a tour-boat operation I’m thinking of buying.”

“How nice for you.”

“Avery,” he said, his voice a growl as he slid a hand into her elbow, forcing her to stop and look at him. She crossed her arms and glared, as if facing all that sun-soaked skin, and those deep grey eyes, and that pure masculine beauty were some kind of chore.

He tipped his face to the ceiling and muttered, “God, I’m going to regret this. Would you care to join me?”

Pollyanna showed up long enough to flip over and waggle her happy feet in the air. But Avery’s dark side, her careful side, pulled Pollyanna’s plaits and told her to shut the hell up for a second.

This wasn’t as simple as being forgiven. This was the tipping point. Her chance to hole up with her heart and spend her summer reading, and swimming, and refilling her emotional well; or to dive into uncharted waters with no clue as to the dangers that lay beneath.

“Are you asking me on a date, Jonah North?”

He watched her for a few seconds, his eyes sliding to settle on her mouth, then with a hard heavy breath he said, “I’ll let you decide when we get there.”

Because there was no choice really. She was going with him. He knew it, and she knew it too.

* * *

Avery leant against the battered Jeep that had brought them to the edge of the crumbling jetty on the side of the marshy river, watching Jonah grumble his way through a business call.

He shot her the occasional apologetic glance, but honestly she could have stayed there all day, watching him pace, listening to that voice; it was nearly enough for her to forgive him the hat—a tatty Red Sox cap that he’d foraged from who knew where, as if the fates one day knew she’d be owed some payback.

Avery turned when she heard a boat. It appeared through the tall reeds; not as fast and streamlined as the boat to Green Island, or sleek and sexy as the one Jonah had been washing down back at Charter North HQ. This was squat, low riding, desperately in need of a paint job.

And had Cape Croc Tours written on the side.

While Jonah chatted with the tour operator, Hull—who’d been pacing back and forth by the Jeep, one eye on the water the other on the man-who-was-not-his-master—huffed at her with a definite air of You asked for it.

Jonah rang off, slid the phone into the back pocket of his shorts, and came to her, long strides eating up the dusty ground. While she subjugated her panic beneath a smile.

“You okay?” he asked, and she dialled the smile back a notch.

“Fine! What girl doesn’t dream about the day a guy offers to take her on a croc tour? Okay? No. I’m not okay. Are you freakin’ kidding me?”

A grin curved across his mouth. Then he reached into the cabin of the Jeep and pulled out an old felt hat and slapped it on her head. Not the most glamorous thing she’d ever worn.

“Can they climb in the boat?”

“The crocs? No.”

Hull huffed as if to say Jonah was pulling her leg. Avery glanced back to find him lying in a patch of shade by the Jeep, his head lying disconsolately on his front paws. In fact, maybe she ought to keep him company—

“Ready?” Jonah asked.

“As I’ll ever be.”

Avery took Jonah’s hand as she stepped into the boat, gripping harder as the boat swayed under her feet. Jonah didn’t let go till he sat her on a vinyl padded bench at the rear of the vessel.

Feeling a little less terrified, she caught his eye and smiled. “I like your shirt, by the way.”

He glanced down at the faded American flag with the eagle emblazoned across it, pulling it away from his chest for a better look and giving her an eyeful of his gorgeous brown stomach.

“Were you thinking of me when you picked it out this morning?”

His deep eyes slunk back to hers, then in a voice deeper than the water below he said, “Believe it or not, princess, I go entire minutes without thinking of you.”

Her smile turned into a grin. “Good for you.”

He flipped some keys into the air, and caught them, then moved to sit on what looked like a modified barstool up near the helm.

“You’re driving?” she called.

“Yep.”

“Shouldn’t we have a chaperone?” She earned a lift of two dark eyebrows for her efforts. “I mean because the boat’s not yours.”

Jonah glanced back at the dock. “If we go down he can have the Jeep. And the dog.”

“The dog that’s not your dog.”

His eyes slid back to hers with a sexy smile.

“Fine. Whatever,” she said, tipping her hat lower on her head and squinting against the sun. Just the two of them, heading off into the wilderness, where crocs were near guaranteed. She really hoped he’d forgiven her for sneaking out on him.

The engine turned over and the boat shifted in the water, giving her a fair spray of river water in the face. Gripping the bench, she looked back over her shoulder and saw how low the boat actually was. The edges of the thing looked real easy to scale. With an agility she wasn’t aware she had she scuttled up to take the stool next to Jonah’s.

“Happier there?”

“Better view.” Her disobedient gaze landed on his muscular arms as he put the boat in gear, eased it into the middle of the thin river, and took the thing along at a goodly pace. Yep, much better.

“So, feel like a date yet?” he asked, and her insides gave a hearty little wobble.

“This is textbook. In New York a date isn’t really a date if there aren’t wild animals involved.”

And just like that she and Jonah North were officially on a date. And she was okay. Not deeper than her limits. Just...about...right. Feeling unusually content about her world and everything in it, Avery propped her feet on the dash; the wind whipping at her hair, the sun beating down on her nose, the deep rumble of the engine lulling her into a most relaxed state. Till the hum, and the heat, and eau de Jonah had her deep in memories of the night before.

“I hate to think what you’re conjuring up over there, Ms Shaw.”