Driving Her Crazy

TWO



Even though she was looking out of the window, Sadie didn’t notice the city streets of Sydney giving way to the red rooves of suburbia or to the greenery of semi-rural market gardens. She was too busy puzzling over her reaction to the man sitting an arm’s length away.

On the surface, he was everything she didn’t usually go for. Physically impressive. Outdoorsy. A beer and football kind of a guy.

But then there was his age.

Through some online investigation last night she’d discovered he was thirty-six and she did have a track record with older men.

Leo had been twenty years her senior.

She supposed a psychologist would say she had a Daddy Complex. Her father had left when she was twelve and got himself a new family, including a set of twins who’d turned into sports-mad little boys.

She’d always felt the fact that she was a girl and had been more arty than sporty had been a huge let-down for her father. And after years of trying to win his attention and affection she’d finally conceded defeat as she’d headed off to college.

So, maybe his abandonment had spread invisible tentacles into her life.

Whatever.

It didn’t change the facts. Nothing else about Kent Nelson should have appealed.

Yet somehow it did.

She studied his profile as he drove, his eyes fixed on the road. His buzz cut melded into the stubble of his sideburns, which flowed into that covering his jaw, hugging the spare planes of his face, emphasising cheekbones that stood out like railings. It made him look...severe. A far cry from the bearded guy who had been laughing at the camera in the snap from the gallery.

It made him look intense.

Guarded.

It made him look haunted.

As a journalist, and a huge fan of his work, it was exceedingly intriguing.

As a woman—it scared the hell out of her.

Kent gripped the steering wheel as Sadie’s speculative gaze seemed to burn a hole at the angle of his jaw. After almost eighteen months in and out of hospitals and another six months of physical therapy, it had been a while since he’d had any kind of constant company—female or otherwise—and her concentration was unnerving.

He turned to look at her and almost rolled his eyes as she quickly pretended she hadn’t been staring at him by feigning interest in the scenery outside her window.

Very mature.

His gaze fell to her legs, the denim riding well and truly up above her knees and pulling taut across thighs as lush and round as the rest of her. Rubenesque slipped into his brain and he flicked his gaze back to the road.

‘I hope you brought something warmer—it’s going to get cold out at night.’

Sadie blinked. They’d been in the car for over an hour and this was the first thing he said to her? She really, really hoped he wasn’t one of those men who thought there was a direct correlation between her cup size and her IQ.

She slapped her forehead theatrically. ‘And I only packed bikinis and a frilly negligee.’

Kent gripped the steering wheel as images of her in a bikini screwed with his concentration. ‘A lot of people think of the outback as hot,’ he quantified, still not looking at her. ‘But it cools down really quickly at night.’

Sadie shot him an impatient look. ‘Thank you. But how about we assume from now on I’m a reasonably intelligent person who wouldn’t go on any trip without having thoroughly researched it first?’

Kent turned his head at the note in her voice. It was more than sarcasm. It was...touchy. As if she’d had to prove her intelligence one too many times. He guessed with her assets people didn’t often see beyond them.

He looked back at the road. ‘Fair enough.’

Sadie groaned as they passed a sign indicating their ascent through the Blue Mountains was about to begin. It came with a warning of sharp corners and hairpin bends.

The nausea kicked in at the thought of what lay ahead. ‘Fabulous,’ she muttered as she searched through her bag for her pills. ‘Dangerous curves.’

Kent wished there were a pill he could take for the ones inside the car, but her look of abject misery kept his brain off her treacherous curves. He could practically hear her teeth grinding as she pawed through the contents of a handbag big enough to fit an entire pharmacy full of motion sickness tablets.

For crying out loud! ‘Do you get sick if you’re the driver?’ he asked.

Sadie shook her head absently, missing the exasperation in his tone as she read the back of the medication box. It was a new brand to her, one supposedly with reduced side effects. ‘Nope.’

‘Well, that’s easy, then, isn’t it?’ he said as he indicated and pulled the car into one of the regular truck laybys that lined the route.

‘What are you doing?’ Sadie frowned as he unbuckled.

‘Letting you drive.’

Sadie didn’t move for a moment. ‘You want me to drive your car?’

He nodded. ‘You do have a licence, right?’

Sadie looked around at the behemoth in which she was sitting. She drove a second-hand Prius. ‘Not a tank licence.’

Kent’s mouth pressed into an impatient line. ‘You’ll be fine.’ He stepped out and strode around to her side.

Sadie had the ridiculous urge to lock her door before he reached her, but then it was open and he was filling the space along with the whoosh of traffic and the acrid aroma of exhaust fumes.

She looked at Kent, surprised at her elevated height to find she was looking him straight in the eye. They were brown, she noticed, now she was focused on something other than his mouth. She was close enough to see flecks of copper and amber shimmering there too, throwing a hue into the darker brown. They reminded her of something—a memory—she couldn’t quite recall.

Kent watched her watching him as if she was trying to figure something out. ‘Don’t they say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?’ he prompted.

Sadie suddenly remembered. The tiger-eye marble she’d had in her collection as a kid. One of her father’s many attempts to get her interested in something other than reading and drawing.

‘Are you sure?’ she asked, looking around the vehicle again, absently pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. If it had been a hire car she wouldn’t have hesitated. ‘I’ve never driven anything quite so...big. I’d hate to crash it.’

Kent did not drop his gaze to her mouth. The fact that he even noticed her lip being ravished by her teeth was irritating enough. He raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you make a habit of crashing cars?’

She shook her head, releasing her lip. ‘No, never.’ She looked back at him and frowned. She’d have thought a he-man like Kent would never have relinquished the wheel.

‘What?’ he asked warily.

Sadie shook her head. ‘I’ve never met a man yet who’d give up the driver’s seat for a woman.’ Her father had never let her mother drive when they were in the car together. ‘Doesn’t it emasculate you or something?’

Kent blinked. That hadn’t been a question he’d expected. What kind of Neanderthals did she hang out with? ‘I think I’m secure enough in my masculinity to not be threatened by a woman in the driver’s seat.’

Sadie’s gaze dropped from the spiky stubble of his angular jaw to the breadth of his shoulders. She had to admit if this man’s masculinity could be threatened then no man’s was safe!

‘Look,’ he said impatiently as she continued to sit. ‘It’s win-win. You don’t get to throw up every two minutes and I get to spot photo opps. I also don’t get to see you all trippy, which, given that we hardly know each other, is a good thing.’

Sadie couldn’t dispute his logic. The last thing she needed was to lose her inhibitions around a man who looked as if he kept his well and truly in check.

If he had any.

‘Fine.’

Sadie undid her belt and twisted in her seat to get out. She glanced at him, waiting for him to shift, her gaze snagging on his mouth. He didn’t for a moment and there was a split second when neither of them moved. When his beautiful mouth filled her entire vision and she found herself wishing he would say something just so she could admire how it moved. Then he stepped back and she half slid, half jumped to the ground on legs that seemed suddenly wobbly.

After giving Sadie a quick tutorial on the various idiosyncrasies of his vehicle, Kent left her to it, making no comment as she lurched it out onto the highway. Her grip on the steering wheel was turning her knuckles white and he was afraid she might split all the skin there if she didn’t ease up.

‘Relax,’ he ordered. ‘You’re doing fine.’

Strangely his command did not help Sadie relax. Her gaze flicked between the rear view and side mirrors as her heartbeat pelted along in time to the engine. She wasn’t sure if it was from nervousness about driving a strange car/tank that belonged to someone else or the weird moment she and Kent had shared as she’d exited the vehicle.

‘Relax,’ he said again.

‘Believe it or not,’ Sadie said, gritting her teeth as she eyeballed the road, ‘you telling me to relax is not helping.’

Kent held up his hands in surrender. ‘Okay.’

‘I just need to get used it,’ she quantified. ‘It’s not normal to be so high up. I feel like I’m driving a truck.’

Kent grimaced. It was hardly a semi-trailer. ‘I said okay.’

He turned then and dragged his camera case out of the back passenger floor well. Sadie was obviously stressed about driving the big, bad vehicle and he had little patience with princesses. Best to keep himself occupied and his lip zipped. And one more equipment check before they got too far away from civilisation wouldn’t go astray.

About ten minutes later he noticed her grip slacken and her shoulders relax back into the seat. Ten minutes after that she even started multitasking.

‘So. What’s the plan?’ Sadie asked, more comfortable now with how the car handled. ‘Where are our scheduled stops?’

Kent looked up from his disassembled camera. ‘Scheduled stops?’

Sadie nodded. ‘You know? Of a night time? When we’re tired?’

‘I hadn’t scheduled any stops. We’re driving all the way through.’

Sadie looked briefly away from the road to blast him with a you-have-to-be-kidding me look. A non-stop journey would probably take two full days.

Without a single break?

‘Don’t we have to sleep some time?’

He speared her with a direct look. ‘Do you really want to make this journey any longer than it has to be? We can pull over and catch some kip along the way. Either in the car or I have a couple of swags.’

Sadie supressed a shudder. Oh, goody. Maybe they’d find a jolly jumbuck to stuff inside. She flicked a quick glance towards him. ‘I don’t camp.’

Kent blinked at the way she said camp—as if she’d said prison. ‘What do you mean, you don’t camp?’

‘It’s simple,’ she said, returning her eyes to the road. ‘You don’t fly. I don’t camp.’

Great. Car sick. Didn’t camp. Sadie Bliss was stacking up the black marks against her name and truly pushing his patience. ‘What on earth have you got against sleeping under the stars?’

‘Nothing,’ Sadie assured him. ‘Give me five of them and I’m happy as a pig in mud.’

Kent shook his head. ‘You haven’t lived, city girl.’

‘I guess we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on that one,’ she said sweetly.

Kent’s mouth took on a grim line. ‘I have a feeling there may be a bit of that this trip.’

Sadie did too. ‘So? Where should we stop tonight, do you think?’ she prompted.

Kent pulled the map out of the glovebox, where Sadie had thrown it in disgust earlier, and did some calculations. ‘It’s about another ten hours to Cunnamulla,’ he said, looking at the digital clock display on the dash. It was just gone nine-thirty. ‘That’ll put us there after seven tonight. It’ll also put us over the Queensland border.’

‘Okay.’ Sadie nodded.

‘Doubt there’s any five-star accommodation there though,’ he mused. ‘We could go another couple hours on to Charleville. It’s twice the size. Still don’t think they run to five star.’

Sadie shot him a sarcastic smile. ‘Thanks, I’ll settle for a shower, a flushing toilet and a bed.’

‘Cunnamulla it is.’

With that sorted, silence reigned as they wended their way through the beautiful Blue Mountains, and down the other side of the Great Dividing Range. Kent went back to his camera bag, soothed by the familiarity of the routine. It had been a while since he’d lugged this stuff around, lived with it every day, and it was comforting to know it still felt good.

He occasionally shot a glance Sadie’s way. He had to admit, after her initial misgivings she was handling the vehicle with great competence. He’d been afraid she was going to whine about the heavy steering or the engine noise or the lack of a stereo system all the way to Borroloola, but she’d got on with the job with no complaints.

No chatter whatsoever.

His kind of travelling companion.

Until it all went to hell two minutes later.

‘So are we going to sit in silence or are we going to get to know each other?’ she asked.

Now she was out of the worst of the windy roads Sadie was free to concentrate on other things. And it had occurred to her that she was sitting next to a man who was pretty hot property, especially since he’d gone underground. How far would a feature on the Kent Nelson get her career? If she had to spend days on end in a car with his particular brand of he-man, she might as well get something for it.

And truly, the way he kept breaking down that camera and reassembling it, as if it were a gun, was slightly unnerving.

Kent sighed. He should have known it was too good to be true. ‘Silence is golden.’

Sadie quirked an eyebrow at his terse reply. ‘Silence is loud.’

He clicked a lens in place, then looked at her. ‘Listen to me, Sadie Bliss. Let’s not pretend that either of us is too thrilled by being stuck in this car together. I know women feel the need to chat and fill up all the empty spaces, but I’m okay with the empty spaces.’ It sure as hell beat the crowding in his head. ‘I like the empty spaces.’

‘I don’t feel the need,’ she dismissed irritably. ‘It’s just, you know...conversational. Polite.’

Kent shoved the camera back in its soft-sided bag. ‘I can handle rude.’

That she could believe. But she doubted she could. ‘So...we’re just going to...not talk? For three thousand kilometres?’

‘Well, I’m sure we’ll need to say the odd word or two. Like, “We need petrol,” and, “How about here for lunch?” But let’s try and keep it to a minimum, huh?’

Sadie blinked at his hard profile. His arrogance that she’d just fall in with his imperious command irked. He might be used to women falling over themselves to do as he said, but she just wasn’t built that way.

And his insistence on silence only piqued her curiosity. The shadows in his eyes told her there was stuff he didn’t want to talk about. And she was pretty sure his refusal to fly was just scratching the surface. Just looking at his guarded exterior made her want to know more.

She wanted to ask about the picture. She wanted to know about that day.

Probably best not to start there though...

She waited a few minutes to lull him into a false sense of security. They were heading for Mudgee on a relatively straight stretch of highway, the scenery fairly standard Australian bush fare. Lots of gums and low, scrubby vegetation.

Fairly uninspiring really.

Especially compared to the story she knew he must be harbouring deep down where the shadows lived.

He’d just opened the map when she said, ‘It could be fun.’ She waited a beat. ‘Getting to know each other.’

Kent didn’t look up from the map. ‘I doubt it.’

He already knew too much about her. Curves that wouldn’t quit. A mouth that was made to be kissed. A weak constitution and a penchant for five-star living.

Trouble.

A real pain in his butt.

Sadie took his blunt rejection on the chin and was pleased she didn’t insult easily. Nor did she dissuade. ‘Oh, come on,’ Sadie goaded. ‘It’s really easy when you try. See, I ask something about you. We discuss it. Then you ask something about me.’

He kept his nose in the map and Sadie felt a peculiar desperation. Why, she wasn’t sure.

‘Easy,’ she added as the silence built.

It built some more.

‘Oh, come on, there must be something you want to know about me.’

Kent looked up at her, regarding her steadily. She’d obviously been to the terrier school of journalism.

Excellent. Chatty and dogged.

Two more black marks.

He suddenly remembered wondering yesterday why Leonard Pinto had requested a rookie journo for his feature.

‘Why did Leonard Pinto want you?’

Sadie almost choked on her own spit as the question caught her unawares. She certainly hadn’t been prepared for his first question to skip so much of the preliminary stuff that was the norm in these situations. Where were you born? How old are you? Where’d you go to school?

Or even the ruder ones that people tended to just come straight out and ask her no matter how inappropriate.

Is that your real name?

Are those your real boobs?

Do you have silicone in those lips?

‘Jeez,’ she said lightly, letting her sarcastic nature run free. ‘Cutting straight to the chase. No name, rank and serial number? No opening pleasantries? I hope you’re more subtle than this on dates.’

Kent raised his eyebrows at her deliberate sidestep, but he hadn’t missed the whitening of her knuckles on the steering wheel.

‘I’m rusty.’

Sadie snorted. The man looked utterly well oiled. In one hundred per cent working order. Even his limp didn’t seem to impede him. ‘You don’t say?’

Kent watched her for a moment or two as she kept her gaze firmly on the road ahead. Her profile was as striking as the rest of her, from her wavy hair to her pouty lips to the thrust of her breasts.

And he really, really didn’t want to be noticing her breasts. ‘Why does Pinto want you?’ he repeated.

Sadie flicked a quick glance his way. ‘Why don’t you fly?’

Kent blinked. He hadn’t expected her to push back so quickly. Or for her salvo to hit its target quite so effectively. ‘Is he a relative?’ he persisted.

Sadie didn’t even let a beat go by. ‘Is it because of the chopper accident?’ she replied.

Kent narrowed his gaze as he looked at her and she turned and shot him a two-can-play-at-this-game look before returning her attention to the road. ‘Or maybe he saw your picture on the magazine website and just wants to get into your pants?’ he parried.

It might only be a head shot, but a man who painted nudes for a living had to appreciate the perfect pout of that mouth.

The air in Sadie’s lungs stuttered to a halt as she forgot to breathe in for a few seconds. Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. She wasn’t about to tell him that Leonard Pinto had been in her pants plenty.

And that there was no way he’d want to go there again. Not with her carrying so much weight.

‘You’re right,’ she said, slamming the car into a lower gear as she slowed for some roadworks. ‘Silence is golden.’

Kent shot her a sardonic smile. ‘I knew you’d see it my way.’

Half an hour later Sadie was pretty bored with the scenery. Kent had the buds of his MP3 player in his ears and was intermittently flipping through a travel book or gazing out at the scenery flashing by. Occasionally she could see those fascinating lips moving—presumably to the music she couldn’t hear.

Or he hadn’t taken his meds today.

He sure hadn’t taken his chatty pill.

He seemed to be having a little party for one in his seat—perfectly content—and it irritated her. If he seriously thought he could ignore her for three thousand kilometres, then he truly did need those meds.

It should have been refreshing to be ignored by a man for a change. But it was strangely off-putting. Attention she could deal with. She could deflect. But inattention, lack of interest even, that wasn’t in her repertoire.

She was going to get him talking if it killed her.

She reached across and yanked on the closest ear bud. ‘How about a game, instead?’ she suggested as he fixed her with a steady glare.

Kent waited a beat of two before replying. She wanted to play games? He notched up another black mark as he held out his hand for the bud. ‘No.’

‘Come on,’ she cajoled undeterred. ‘This is supposed to be a road trip, right? You play games on road trips. It’s in all the movies.’

Kent refused to think about the kind of games he could play with Sadie Bliss. He was not going to think about strip anything. He wasn’t going there. ‘I don’t do games,’ he said bluntly as he relieved her of his ear bud.

She quirked an eyebrow. ‘What, not even I Spy?’

Kent regarded her for a moment, all perky and pushy. He needed to nip that in the bud or this trip was going to be interminable. ‘How about truth or dare?’

Sadie’s pulse spiked at the silky note in his voice and the way his gaze seemed to flick, ever so briefly, to her mouth. It was tempting but she doubted he’d go for truth. And she was damned if she was going to dare this man to do anything.

‘Maybe once we’ve got to know each other a little better?’ she retreated.

Kent pulled his gaze away from her, startled at the thought. He didn’t want to know Sadie Bliss. A sign flashed by and he grabbed a mental hold. ‘I spy with my little eye,’ he said, ‘something beginning with petrol station.’

Sadie kept her eyes firmly on the indicated services ahead. She scrunched her brow. ‘You know you’re only supposed to say the first letter, right?’

He ignored her sarcasm. ‘Pull in, I’m starving. Breakfast seems a very long time ago.’

Sadie had been starving for the last three days. ‘We’ve only been in the car for three hours,’ she pointed out.

‘I need snacks,’ he said. ‘And you can use the facilities.’

‘Gee, thanks,’ Sadie said rolling her eyes as she indicated left. ‘But my days of enforced toileting ended a long, long time ago. You may have women in your life with weak bladders but, I can assure you, mine is made of cast iron.’

‘So it’s just your stomach that’s weak?’ he enquired drily.

Sadie shot him a look as she prepared to park. ‘Really? You want to annoy me now? As I’m parking your tank in this itty-bitty car space?’

Kent assessed the one remaining, very narrow car space. She made a good point. ‘Nope.’

Sadie turned back to the job at hand as she nervously pulled the car into the middle of three parking bays. The heavy steering was fine for wide open spaces but it felt as if she was trying to grapple a huge metallic beast into a matchbox as she centred the vehicle.

It was gratifying to get a grunt of respect from Kent.

He flung his door open as soon as she killed the engine. ‘You coming?’

Sadie shook her head. ‘I’m good.’

‘You want something?’

She shook it again. ‘I brought some snacks with me.’

Sadie watched him stride to the sliding doors of the service station, pleased to be released from his company for a few minutes. His jeans gently hugged his bottom and the backs of his thighs without being skin tight. His T-shirt was loose enough for the breeze to blow it against the broad contours of his back. And his limp, barely discernible, added an extra edge to his rugged appeal.

A blonde woman with a baby on her hip coming out of the sliding door as Kent went in actually stood for a moment admiring the view. She seemed perplexed for a second after the closing glass doors snatched him away. As if she couldn’t remember why she was standing in the car park gawping at a closed door.

I hear ya, honey.

He was back in a few minutes loaded down with enough carbohydrates to exceed his recommended daily intake from now until the end of his days. She felt hyperglycaemic just looking at them.

‘Here,’ he said as he passed her a packet of Twisties. ‘I got one for you, too.’

Twisties? Dear God, he was going to eat Twisties—her one weakness—right in front of her. She passed them back.

‘Thanks, I’ve got these,’ she said, waving a celery stick at him.

Kent grimaced as he opened his packet. ‘You’re going to eat celery? On a road trip.’

He had a way of emphasising celery as if it were suet or tripe. ‘It’s healthy,’ she said defensively, and was about to launch into a spiel about the amazing properties of the wonder food when the aroma of carbohydrates wafted out to greet her like an old friend and she momentarily lost her train of thought.

How could that special blend of additives and preservatives smell so damn good? Her stomach growled.

Loudly.

Kent raised an eyebrow. ‘I think your stomach wants a say.’

Sadie stuffed the celery into her mouth and started the car to stop her from reaching over and lifting a lurid orange piece out and devouring it like the Cookie Monster. ‘It’s because I listen to my stomach too damn often that I’m as big as I am,’ she muttered testily as she reversed.

Kent eyed her critically as he buckled up, thinking she looked pretty damn good to him. He shook his head. Women in the western world amazed him. Their lives were so privileged they had nothing but trivialities to worry about. He really didn’t have the patience for it.

‘Please tell me you’re not going to eat celery for three days.’

Sadie gave him an exasperated glare. ‘What’s it matter to you?’

He bugged his eyes at her. To think less than two years ago he had been in the thick of a combat zone and now he was talking to a madwoman with a weak constitution but an apparently strong bladder about celery of all things.

‘I think it’s making you cranky.’

Sadie flicked her gaze to the road, then back at him. He had orange Twistie dust on the tips of his fingers and his lips, which just went to show perfection could be improved upon. She wondered what he’d taste like beneath the flavours of salt and cheese.

Her stomach growled again and she started to salivate.

And not for celery.

Maybe not even for Twisties.

‘No,’ she denied, looking back to the road. ‘You and your damn Twisties are making me cranky.’

‘I guess that means you won’t want any M&M’s either?’ he enquired.

Sadie almost groaned out loud. How on earth did he keep in such magnificent shape? She could feel the fat cells on her butt multiplying just by looking at the familiar chocolate snacks.

‘Thank you,’ she denied primly. ‘I’ll stick with my celery.’

Kent shrugged. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said as he threw a Twistie into the air near his face and caught it in his mouth.

The crunch thankfully drowned out another resounding growl from her belly.

By the time they’d crossed the state border and arrived in Cunnamulla, Sadie was definitely ready to call it a day. She was tired and over her strong, silent travelling companion, who had snacked all day, read, slept, listened to music and devoured two pies and a large carton of iced-coffee for lunch, whilst disparaging her pumpkin and feta salad with a Diet Coke.

All with only the barest minimum of conversation.

She wanted a shower. Then a bed.

The welcome glow of a vacancy sign cheered her enormously. ‘This okay?’ she asked him.

Kent nodded. ‘As good as any, I guess.’

Sadie parked the car in front of the reception and she and Kent went inside, the night air already starting to cool.

‘Two rooms, please,’ Sadie said to the middle-aged woman behind the desk.

‘I’m sorry, we only have one left,’ she apologised.

‘Oh,’ Sadie murmured, her shoulders sagging.

The woman looked from Sadie to Kent, then back to Sadie, and brightened. ‘It has two doubles, though?’

Kent opened his mouth to tell the woman they’d go elsewhere but Sadie, standing tall again, butted in. ‘We’ll take it.’

He blinked at her. ‘I’m sure there are other hotels here that will have two separate rooms,’ he said to her.

‘I’m sure there are,’ Sadie agreed wearily. ‘And if you want to go and track them down I’ll wish you luck. But I’m exhausted. My butt is numb. The thought of getting back in the car again makes me want to cry. So I’m going to stay right here, if it’s all the same to you.’

Kent looked down at her doe eyes, the lashes fluttering against her cheek. She did look pretty done in and she had driven all day without complaint.

‘Fine. I can sleep in the car.’

Sadie cocked an eyebrow. She doubted the confines of his back car seat would be very accommodating for a man of his proportions. ‘I’m an adult. You’re an adult. There are two beds. I promise not to wake up in the middle of the night and try to seduce you.’

Kent gave her a grudging smile. His first for the day. ‘Well, now you’ve just taken all the fun out of it. And you, going to the trouble of bringing your frilly negligee.’

Sadie blinked, surprised to discover that beneath all that guarded silence, a sense of humour lurked. ‘Well, will you look at that,’ she murmured. ‘He does know how to smile.’

Kent suppressed another smile. ‘Don’t get used to it.’

Sadie absently massaged her neck, too tired for this conversation. ‘Fine, tough guy, sleep in the car. Just don’t moan tomorrow when you have a crick in your neck.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve slept far rougher.’ Being embedded with active forces in the Middle East on several occasions had been far from luxurious.

Not that he’d slept much then.

Or now, for that matter.

Sadie sighed. ‘Well, bully for you, He-man.’

Kent was so surprised by the nickname he actually laughed this time. He’d never been called that before, at least not to his face, and it was bemusing. ‘Did you just call me a he-man?’

Sadie felt his laughter undulate through every muscle in her body right down to her toes. It might have taken her all day but it had been worth the wait. ‘I call it as I see it.’

Kent opened his mouth to deny it but Sadie was looking up at him with long, sleepy blinks and he had the wildest urge to see what she’d look like between motel sheets.

He turned to the woman behind the desk, who’d been watching their exchange like an engrossed spectator at a tennis match. ‘Where do I sign?’ he asked.