Single Girl Abroad (Mills & Boon M&B) (Mills & Boon Special Releases) (11 page)

‘All right,’ she said guardedly. ‘First question. Are you ever contactable when you disappear on these jobs? As in if I needed to contact you is there a number I can call?’

Not such a hard question to answer. ‘Often I’m contactable on my mobile right up until I enter the hot zone. Once I’m in the zone, contact ceases. There are numbers I can give you in case of an emergency.’

‘How long are you usually in this hot zone?’

‘It varies. A lot of time I spend away is taken up with travelling. Then there’s planning, paperwork, and rest. On a routine disarm, hot-zone time is minimal. I usually know exactly what weapon I’m dealing with and what I have to do. I go in, I do the job, and I get out. I’m talking minutes rather than hours.’

Madeline smiled wryly. ‘You make it sound so easy.’

‘I’m very fond of easy,’ he said. ‘But in the interests of full disclosure there will occasionally be times when you won’t be able to contact me for weeks. On those jobs I’ll be part of a military operation. Communication is limited because we’re in unsecured territory. War zones and the like. Those jobs are few and far between but they do exist.’

‘Was your last job one of them?’

‘Yes.’

Madeline’s gaze cut to his shoulder again. ‘Full disclosure really isn’t helping your cause,’ she murmured.

‘Yes, but next time I go away if I can tell you it’s a routine pass over an armed missile chances are you won’t worry.’

‘That’s really not how worry works,’ she said dryly. ‘Although I do sincerely appreciate your efforts to set my mind at ease.’

‘It gets easier, Maddy.’

‘Really? How would you know?’ Amusement laced
with bite and he was ridiculously glad of it. He far preferred the confident, smart-mouthed Madeline to the fragile waif he so didn’t want to break.

‘Okay, so I’ve
heard
it gets easier. Long-term Navy wives
swear
they hardly worry about their husbands at
all
.’

‘Have you ever stopped to wonder
why
?’

‘Resilience,’ said Luke.

‘Indifference,’ countered Madeline.

‘Cynic.’

‘Idealist,’ she shot back.

‘I missed you,’ he said.

Madeline shook her head and looked away from the beautiful warrior who was Luke Bennett. Shattering her defences one by one. Methodically. Deliberately. Until he’d stripped her raw. ‘Have you any idea how hard it is for me to take a chance on you, Luke Bennett?’

‘I have a fair idea,’ he said quietly.

‘My father self-destructed. So did my brother. Both of them chasing death and there was nothing I could do to stop them.’

‘I’m not like them, Maddy.’

‘No?’

‘No.’ Luke’s gaze met hers, blazing gold and fiercely implacable. ‘I don’t court death. I hate it. I do everything in my power to ensure it doesn’t claim innocent lives. I do my damnedest to make sure that it doesn’t claim me. I protect the things I love, Madeline. I don’t abandon them.’

Madeline blinked away the sting of tears and drew a deep breath as Yun came in to clear the remains of the meal away. Madeline watched as the old housekeeper’s
eyes widened momentarily at the amount of food they’d managed to consume. A smile threatened to crack open Yun’s timeworn face. Luke saw it too. He didn’t miss much, this lovely defiant warrior. And when he found a crack he instantly pressed his advantage.

‘Thanks, Yun,’ he murmured, and began to stack the plates nearest to him. Yun stopped him with a not so gentle smack to his forearm. Madeline smirked.

‘Rest arm,’ snapped Yun. ‘Fool. Less and less like tiger, more and more like ox.’

‘Strong?’ prompted Luke. ‘Steadfast?’

‘Stubborn,’ corrected Yun.

Luke pointed to an empty dish. ‘What was this one?’

‘BBQ duck with sweet sauce, red chilli, and ginger,’ said Yun. ‘You like?’

‘Definitely.’

‘For strength,’ Yun muttered and stalked away.

Once all the food had disappeared and Yun along with it, Madeline’s apprehension about what to do about Luke Bennett grew. ‘Would you like to come through to the lounge area?’ she said awkwardly. ‘It might be more comfortable for your arm.’

‘The arm’s fine,’ he said steadily, but he headed for the soft suede lounge and leaned back into it as Madeline fiddled with the channels again and, lacking anything suitable, finally switched over to music. William had loved classical music and in time Madeline had come to love it too. All the different colours and hues of emotion that mankind had yet to find words for. Today’s colour was blue. Soothing, she hoped. A little slice of calm in
a world made ever more complicated by a pair of warm golden eyes.

‘Nice,’ he murmured.

‘Really?’

‘Really,’ he said and watched her while she hovered by the entertainment system. Madeline stayed where she was, caught as she was between wanting to sit next to him on the sofa and knowing that if she did go and sit by him, and allow herself to touch him, she’d be lost and they’d be right back where they were before he went away.

‘I’ve been thinking about basing myself here in Singapore,’ said Luke, his murmured words wrapping around her like a silken thread. Simultaneously beautiful and terrifying. She didn’t speak. She couldn’t breathe. More than she’d hoped for. Far more than she dared take.

‘It’d mean I’d be here in between jobs. Not at the dojo. I’d find a place of my own.’

‘You’d need residency,’ she said, trying to sound non-committal, as if where he decided to base himself was neither here nor there to her. ‘And a job.’

‘I have a job.’

‘A job that benefits Singapore’s economy or its people.’

‘You don’t think they’d see my job in that light?’

‘I don’t know what they’d think,’ she said, brutally honest. ‘But I think if you’re really serious about this you might want to bypass the immigration clerks in favour of someone with a little more clout. Letters of reference wouldn’t hurt either.’

‘Noted,’ he said. ‘I’m looking at residency here for a number of reasons. Being closer to family is one of them.’

‘Family’s important,’ she murmured. It was a good
reason for him to be thinking about relocating to Singapore in between jobs. She couldn’t fault it.

‘That Singapore is a major transport hub doesn’t hurt either.’ He looked so relaxed. So at ease, sitting there on her lounge. So far his reasoning was entirely logical. Maybe he wasn’t looking to deepen their relationship. Maybe he was simply rearranging his closet.

‘And then there’s you.’

Madeline’s heart thudded in her chest. Hope. Fear. Each of them fighting for supremacy.

‘I’m not trying to pressure you into a relationship you’re not interested in pursuing, Madeline, but you said on the phone that you wanted to know where we stood. That you needed a statement of intent from me, so here it is. I want to explore this thing between us, Maddy. I’m willing to give it the time it deserves and I want to see what comes of it. This is my intent.’

‘You’d really rearrange your life so there was room for me in it?’ she asked raggedly. She always had been a sucker for being wanted.
One day when I’m older … One day when I’m out of the system … One day when someone wants me …

‘It’s not such a big deal, Maddy. Changing home base isn’t as big a hassle for me as it is for some. I’d still only be here a couple of weeks out of every five. And I live light. I don’t have all the accompaniments a lot of people have—’

‘Luke,’ she interrupted. ‘Shush. You’re spoiling my moment. I’d like to enjoy it just a little longer if you don’t mind.’

A slow smile stole across his face. Sunshine after rain. ‘So … you like the idea?’

She still had to think through all of the ramifications, but, yes. ‘Let’s just say it’s growing on me.’ She went to him then, and straddled him, mindful of his arm but not careful of his mind as she leaned into him for a slow and gentle kiss that a woman might wish would never end. ‘You make it sound so simple.’

‘It is simple. Easy, even.’ He urged her forward and into another languid kiss. Slow and savouring and heartbreakingly perfect. ‘I’m very fond of easy.’

‘Welcome to Singapore,’ she whispered.

He stayed the night. And he took Maddy easy.

Waking the next morning and leaving her bed with a naked Luke Bennett in it proved something of a challenge for Madeline. But he’d loved her thoroughly during the night and he slept deeply now and Maddy had no wish to wake him. Better for her to shower and get ready for work and for Luke to sleep and let his body mend and wake at will. She didn’t like the chances of Luke’s shoulder getting much rest while he was awake.

Maddy surveyed the square gauze bandage taped to his skin between collarbone and shoulder with a furrowed brow. The bandage was the size of her hand and the faint stain of dried blood darkened the gauze. Madeline hated the stark reminder that Luke wasn’t infallible and that he could be hurt.

Don’t mess with the job, he’d told her, and had then proceeded to outline how he worked, so that she would have a better understanding of it. She appreciated the gesture, she really did. Whether it would help her cope better the
next time he went away remained to be seen. She’d try, though—he’d won that much concession from her.

She had the disquieting feeling that Luke Bennett could convince her to try just about anything.

L
UKE
woke slowly, wincing as he rolled onto his side and remembered his shoulder injury first, and where he was second. Madeline’s bed, only Maddy wasn’t in it. The bedside clock read ten past eleven, which gave him a clue as to why he was alone. Madeline would be at work.

He leaned over the side of the bed and found his phone in the pile of clothes on the floor.

‘You left without saying goodbye,’ he said when finally he reached her.

‘So did you.’

Ouch. ‘Wake me next time,’ he muttered. ‘Because the next time a job comes calling I fully intend waking you.’

‘Appreciated,’ she said smoothly.

‘I’m still at your place.’ He needed a shower but figured for courtesy’s sake that he could make do without until he got to Jake’s. ‘How do I get
out
of your place without encountering the tiny terror?’

‘You don’t,’ said Madeline. ‘Yun fully intends feeding
you before you go. I left her poring over cookbooks relating to the care and feeding of wounded warriors.’

‘They’ve got cookbooks for that?’

‘Oh, yes. Some of them date back dynasties. I hope you like gruel.’

‘She really doesn’t need to make a fuss,’ said Luke a touch desperately.

‘Oh, there’ll be no fuss.’ Madeline’s smile transmitted down the phone line loud and clear. ‘I have to go. I’ve a meeting about to begin, but I’m glad you slept soundly and I hope you’re feeling a little better this morning. Is that too much mothering for you?’

Decidedly not. If anything it felt a little light. ‘You could always swing by the dojo on your way home from work,’ he murmured, and hoped he didn’t sound as needy as he felt. ‘There’s a vacant apartment a couple of blocks east that I want to take a look at. It belongs to Mr Chin who runs the takeaway across the road from Jake’s.’

‘You’d take a rental contract before you got permission to stay in Singapore?’ asked Madeline. ‘That’s pretty bold, warrior. Reckless, even.’

‘Chin’s willing to rent it by the month while I can get that sorted. I prefer to call it forward thinking and seeing as Delacourte is heavily invested in the rental market hereabouts I figured your opinion on location and price might be well worth listening to.’

‘Opportunist,’ she said.

‘So you’ll come and look at it with me?’

‘Of course. I’ll pull up some figures for you today. Also some Delacourte options, if you’re interested. Is it furnished?’

‘No.’

‘You do believe doing things the hard way,’ she said on a sigh.

‘There are shops in Singapore,’ he countered. ‘Buy a bed, a fridge, and a table, and if I don’t get residency I’ll give them to Jake. And, Maddy, about those Delacourte options … I appreciate your offer. I really do. But becoming your tenant is about on par with having you pick me up in your car. It’s a beautiful ride but it rubs.’

‘Your call,’ she said coolly.

‘It is.’ And a big call it was too, for a man lying stark naked in her bed and about to be fed gruel by her maid. ‘You’ve got your issues, Maddy. I’ve got mine. We just need to give them a bit of space to be, that’s all.’

‘All right,’ she said in a voice carefully stripped of emotion. She still didn’t like it, he thought, but she wore it, because he’d asked her to. ‘I’ll meet you at seven this evening and we’ll look at the apartment and after that you can take me to dinner as payment for my expertise. How does that sound?’

‘Perfect,’ said Luke. ‘Now, are you sure there’s no way out of here without going past Yun?’

‘Not unless you’re related to Superman and can fly,’ she said dryly. ‘Prepare to be fed, warrior. Yun likes to cook for people who like to eat. I saw what you ate last night. I have faith in your ability to please.’

‘Enjoy your meeting, Delacourte,’ he said. ‘Go make business grow.’

‘I’m glad you thought of me when you woke,’ she said after a pause. ‘I’m glad you called me. You made my day.’

Then she hung up.

Two weeks passed by in a blur of project work for Madeline and a crash course in home furnishings for Luke. His tables and chairs were old and mismatched, some of the chairs from Jake’s and some of them from Chin’s restaurant. No wardrobes to speak of, a new fridge and a new bed.

It turned out that Luke enjoyed wielding a hammer, and with Po’s assistance and the acquisition of half a dozen old wooden pallets they’d knocked up a bookshelf and two bedside tables. They’d started on another bookshelf build after that—this one for the sensei. Next on the list was a desk. Luke had gone to great lengths to secure some exquisitely grained antique hardwood for the job. The desk was for Po.

Luke’s collection of power tools grew and so did Maddy’s amusement, for the man still hadn’t got around to purchasing cutlery or cookware and stared at her blankly when at last she suggested it.

Each to his own.

Po became, if not a fixture at Luke’s apartment, then at least a regular visitor. Madeline became a regular visitor too, revelling in Luke’s casual acceptance of her appearing without notice and the not so casual lovemaking that often came afterwards.

This night, though, Madeline had received instructions from Yun to bring the tiger if she must but to get herself home and plan to stay home for the rest of the evening, because Yun had been cooking, and someone sure as hell needed to eat it.

Madeline had winced guiltily at Yun’s pointed comment. She’d kept up with her work these past two weeks,
and she’d kept up with Luke and with Po. The person she hadn’t kept in mind and in her heart was Yun.

‘I have a dinner invitation for you,’ she said when she meandered into Luke’s apartment that evening. The man had acquired a café-sized coffee-making machine between last night and this one. He’d probably scrounged it from Chin’s and it probably didn’t work because pieces of it were scattered across the kitchen bench. ‘My place, tonight. I’m heading there now, Yun’s been cooking, and you’re welcome to stay over.’

‘Fine,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Want me to bring anything?’

‘Charm,’ said Madeline. ‘Yun’s feeling neglected.’

‘I’ll get some on the way,’ he said. ‘I know this place.’

Yun opened the door to Luke that evening with a narrow-eyed glare. Luke took one look at her, dug his peace offering from his pocket and handed it to her without preamble. ‘Charm,’ he said. ‘Enjoy.’

Whatever she was cooking smelled absolutely fantastic. Within half an hour the sideboard in the informal living room was groaning beneath the weight of the delicacies being thrust upon it.

‘First course,’ said Yun, only this time Luke followed the tiny terror back to the kitchen.

He studied the benches and the abundance of food set out on them in various stages of preparation. Yun must have been working all day on this, or more. Not one of these dishes looked simple. Every last one of them smelled divine.

Madeline stepped into the kitchen, her eyes widening as she took in the spread.

Yun stood there defiant. Madeline’s lips twitched. ‘I hope you’re hungry,’ said Madeline.

‘I hope you’re joking,’ he said. ‘We’re going to need more people.’

So Madeline got on the phone and invited Jake and Po to join them and the old housekeeper’s eyes gleamed.

The Bennett clan, of which Po was now a member, worked their way steadily and with great enjoyment through Yun’s feast. Yun lost her sternness, started to smile, and she positively beamed when at the end of the meal Po opted into the clean-up process, ruthlessly efficient and very, very swift.

After that evening the balance of the relationship changed subtly.

Luke, getting the hint that Yun enjoyed company, and stopping by Madeline’s more regularly rather than waiting for her to come to him, often with Po in tow, sometimes when Madeline was there and sometimes not.

Madeline returning home late from work one night to find Luke, Jake and Po learning t’ai chi from Yun up on the rooftop garden. Hard for her not to savour each golden moment of this makeshift family that was so much more than she’d ever had.

Luke, watching the images that rolled through Madeline’s digital photo frame.

‘That’s Remy,’ she told Luke willingly enough one evening. ‘My brother.’ Gaunt-faced and drug-addled. Hellbent.

The next picture came up. An older man standing with Remy at the bow of a boat. ‘William,’ she said, and brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
Luke rarely asked her about her life with William but it sat there between them at times, an elephant in the room. ‘He was the one who helped me get Remy out of Thailand and back here to Singapore and into hospital. He hardly knew us, he
didn’t
know us, but he stopped, and he saw, and he helped us.’

The next photo appeared. A picture of William and herself dressed for a ball. She looked very young. William looked every bit his age.

‘Why?’ said Luke. Same question he’d always asked and one she’d never been able to answer to his satisfaction.

‘Because he was there for me,’ she offered finally. ‘Because sometimes a person’s past isn’t pretty, and sometimes out of the darkness something good comes along and you never forget it. Remy was my nightmare. William was my something good.’

Luke closed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘God, Maddy,’ he said raggedly.

‘I know you don’t understand why I married him.’ She didn’t care what society at large thought of her marriage to William, but she’d come to care a great deal about what this man thought. ‘But it wasn’t for his money and it wasn’t out of gratitude. It was because he saw me as I was. Driven, hungry, desperate, and in spite of all that he loved me anyway. I’d never had that. I craved it.’ She rested her chin on her knees and willed Luke to look at her and finally he did. ‘So I took it.

‘I don’t regret it,’ she said when Luke remained silent. ‘I will always honour William and the time I spent with
him. In the way I run Delacourte. In the respect I have for myself today. I hope you can understand that.’

‘I do,’ he muttered and gathered her close, knees and all, warming her with his nearness as he brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek. ‘I do understand. I just wish … that someone had protected you more,
cared
for you more, when you were younger. Maybe if they had you wouldn’t have made the choices you did.’

‘Please don’t paint me the victim, Luke.’ She stared at him through troubled eyes. ‘If you do, I’ll only disappoint you. You need to understand that marrying William was a choice I made of my own free will. I’m not a victim. I never have been, and I can’t play that role. Not even for you.’

‘I’m not asking you to.’

She wanted to believe him. She badly wanted to believe that he saw her, all of her, and accepted her for the person she was. Damaged. Driven. And devoted, in her way, to the memory of a man who had given her so much and asked for so little. ‘I never loved him, Luke.’ Not the way she could come to love this man if she let herself. ‘I told you that once before and you didn’t like it. You still don’t like it and there’s nothing I can do or say to change that. But honour William … that I can do.’

Luke closed his eyes, blocking her out, as if refusing to see the parts of her he didn’t want to see. ‘I understand honour,’ he said gruffly.

‘I know you do.’

‘And I’m doing my damnedest to understand you. It’s not easy for me, Maddy. You tear me apart sometimes.’

‘I know that too.’

Another week passed and Luke and Po built a study desk befitting an industry lion. Po’s job now was to sand the desk down, and he spent most of his evenings at Luke’s place, working his way through the various grades of sandpaper until the wood felt as smooth to the touch as polished marble.

‘You need to think about what kind of stain or polish you want on it,’ said Luke as Madeline looked on from the doorway, coffee cup in hand. She’d come straight from work and she couldn’t stay long for a charity meeting beckoned, but even a quick fix was better than nothing these days.

‘Can I keep it this colour?’ asked Po.

‘You can do anything you want,’ said Luke. ‘Although you might want to put some sort of sealant on it to protect the wood. Doesn’t have to be paint—we could probably use oils and wax and I reckon I know who’d have a recipe.’

‘Yun,’ said Po. ‘I’ll go see her tomorrow.’

‘It might make the wood look a little bit darker,’ said Madeline. ‘Richer in colour. Deeper.’

‘That’d be all right.’ Po put the sandpaper down and started wiping the desk over with a square of black silk Luke had picked up from somewhere. Small boy, dark, wary eyes that saw everything and revealed little. ‘Luke …’ said the boy hesitantly. ‘You know how you just said I can do anything I want …’

Luke stopped rolling up the extension cord and gave the boy his full attention.

‘Do you think the sensei would mind if I didn’t become a martial arts master?’

‘I thought you liked martial arts training.’

‘I do,’ said Po earnestly. ‘And I still want to do it every day and every night. But I want to be something else when I grow up.’

‘What do you want to be?’ said Luke.

‘A lawyer.’

To his credit, Luke didn’t point out the obvious. That law required education and Po had so far refused to even consider giving them the information they needed to get him enrolled in a school.

‘I don’t think Jake would mind,’ said Luke.

‘A human rights lawyer,’ said Po next.

Luke smiled a little at that. ‘I don’t think Jake would mind at all.’

And then the phone that usually sat silently on Luke’s nightstand rang and Luke froze. Maddy watched him expectantly, and when he didn’t make a move to pick up the call, she felt the ghost of trepidation skid down her spine.

Luke’s gaze cut to hers, storm-tossed and wary.

‘Phone,’ she said, and knew what was coming. Within a few hours the fabric of her world would rip and remake itself once again and Luke would be gone.

No, thought Luke when he first heard the phone ring. Not now. That life had nothing to do with the life he enjoyed now.

Only it did.

He didn’t need a regular job on account of the work he chose to do. Then there was the not so small matter of the adrenalin junkie in him flat out enjoying a life-or-death challenge. It was only the fear of how the call would affect Madeline that stayed his hand.