Know Your Heart: A New Zealand Enemies to Lovers Romance (Far North Series Book 2) (23 page)

***

Glen waved Tom and Jamie off alone just before nine, Savannah having announced after breakfast she was going for a run. She gave Tom a brief goodbye hug before disappearing down the driveway like a startled gazelle.

Or a chicken
, Glen decided, as his brother’s sleek grey Mercedes drove away in a cloud of dust. A big chicken who didn’t want to admit to Tom she had no intention of going to his performance.

He paced around the house a bit, the silence and Sav’s absence eating away at him like acid. Opening his manuscript file, he stared at the lines of text, waiting for the usual pull as they sucked him into the world of swords and magic.

Nothing. The words were all out of magic this morning.

Sav habitually finished off her run with some yoga stretches, so he closed the laptop and headed out to the barn.

Glen leaned against the inside barn wall, dust motes spinning in shafts of sunlight. He’d find out what put the wounded look in her hazel eyes. Then they’d talk like rational adults, and he’d fix it—
fix them
. Somehow, he’d find the words to ensure this little bubble of warmth around them didn’t collapse.

Sav walked through the doors, gasping like a racehorse. She braced her hands on her knees and sucked air, breasts straining against her tank top. His gaze skimmed the slope of her back, over the curve of her hips, down to the muscles twitching in her calves. The scent of salty-sweet warm woman drifted over to him in an intoxicating cloud.

He must’ve made a small sound, maybe his shoes shifted on the floor, because Sav’s head flicked toward him, the easy, unselfconsciousness of her posture instantly disappearing. He opened his mouth to explain why he was waiting like a goddamn stalker, but nothing came out. As for all the questions he’d planned to ask to figure out what went on in her head?

Gone the moment her eyes met his.

Gone, because two seconds later, he had his hands on her. Then he couldn’t think. At least, not in words other than:
beautiful, mine, naked, now
.

He lifted her off her feet, wrapping her in his arms and kissing her until he had no words at all. Sav’s fingers dragged through his hair and down to his shoulders, nails digging through his shirt. She wrapped her legs around his hips, clinging like ivy. Glen grabbed two handfuls of heaven and strode to the workbench, settling her on top before peeling her arms from his neck.

He hooked off his tee shirt, and spread it on the workbench next to her. Sav’s gaze darted down to his shirt, then back up.

The tip of her tongue swiped along her lower lip. “Here?”

“Here.” Glen picked her off the bench and lowered her feet to the floor, his hands sliding from her waist to the elasticated band of her shorts. “Now,” he added, and yanked the cotton fabric down, catching the top of her panties and dragging them down, too.

Savannah gasped but obediently stepped out of her clothing, leaving her only in her running shoes and tank top. Crossing her hands at the hem of her top, she peeled the garment off then reached behind and snapped the catch of her sports bra. Savannah boosted herself back up onto the bench, and spread her thighs. An offering he couldn’t turn down, even with a gun to the head.

Glen dug a condom from his pocket and then unzipped his jeans. Hard to the point of physical pain, he took care of business and stepped between her legs. Her hands drifted onto his shoulders, while he pulled his body snug against hers—hard against such soft, sweet, wetness.

“Ready?” His voice cracked with hunger.

“Yes.”

Sav’s ankles locked around him, and he nudged inside, his heart thudding out of control, fingers digging into her hips as their bodies aligned.

“Always,” she said.

Her hips angled subtly, and she guided him home. He took her mouth, pulse repeating her answer as he thrust into her again and again.

Always, always, always.

If only they both could believe it.

Chapter 14

For nearly forty-eight hours, Glen barely let Savannah out of his sight—mainly because they barely left the pillow-top mattress.

But the sound of Todd’s ute rattling into their driveway before eight in the morning had Savannah whipping the sheet off his naked body and giving him a hard shove.

“Better put on some pants, lover-boy.”

He grumbled to the bed’s edge, spying a pair of shorts on the floor. Clothes he hadn’t worn for two days. His skin stretched tight as his cheeks bunched into a wide smile. Glen dragged on the shorts and snagged the crumpled tee shirt next to it.

“Don’t go back to sleep.” He walked to the door. “I have plans for you when I get rid of Todd…now that you’re awake.”

Savannah rolled over, the sheet slipping down to expose a pale-pink nipple. She shoved the tangled mass of bed-hair from her face and mock glared. “I’ve been awake since five when you woke me with your…”

Glen’s smile grew wider, and she made the most adorable huffing sound then hurled a pillow across the room. Glen dodged it with a laugh.

“Go see what he wants, and hurry up; or I may just fall asleep again.” She flopped back on the bed.

Glen strode down the hallway. A car door slammed, followed seconds later by another. Freaking great. One car door could’ve meant Todd wanted to borrow some of the tools Nate left in Savannah’s tiny garden shed, or maybe a spare carton of milk.

Two car door slams meant visitors.

And with only days remaining before he was due back in Auckland, he didn’t want to shoot the shit with Todd and Kathy—nice people though they were—when he could be discovering new ways to make Savannah scream his name.

He yanked open the front door and stepped into the misty-morning air. The sun strained to break through the cloud cover, lending the light a spooky, otherworldly quality. Which he would’ve enjoyed painting word pictures about if it hadn’t been for Todd and Nate, dressed in black wetsuits, strolling toward him. And on the back of Todd’s ute?

Three surf boards.

Nate’s face split into an evil smile. “Morning, sunshine. Welcome to your first surf intervention.”

Glen curled his toes onto the damp wooden deck, as if that’d prevent Nate and Todd from dragging him away. “You both know I can’t surf, and I don’t need any kind of intervention.”

“Yeah, ya do.” Todd scratched his shaggy blonde hair then rested his hand on the wetsuit draped over his shoulder. “It’s tradition.”

“A drowning the new guy tradition?”

Todd and Nate shot each other an amused glance. Nate whipped the wetsuit off Todd’s shoulder and tossed it at Glen.

Glen allowed it to flop at his feet. “Hell, no.”

“Couple of hours of sun, sand, and surf will do you a world of good,” said Nate. “It’ll clarify some of that shit spinning around in your head. Worked for me, eh, Todd?”

“Like a charm.”

“I’ve no shit to clarify,” Glen said, but he felt himself wavering.

Savannah mentioned she wanted to work on her script this morning, plus make a phone call to her agent.

Todd pulled a fake sad face and sighed, slapping Nate’s shoulder. “Sorry bro, hate to break it to you—but your mate’s a wuss.”

Nate’s eyes gleamed as he tried not to smile. “You know the type, Todd. Writes about some guy having adventures but doesn’t have the balls to actually have one himself.”

Glen nudged the wetsuit with a toe. “Drowning for your entertainment is having an adventure?”

“Yup,” said Todd. “So man up and get changed before we diss your manhood to Nate’s little cousin.”

The pointed look Nate shot Glen tightened his gut. It was a look saying,
I don’t want to know Savannah’s naked in your bed.

“You heard the part about me not being able to surf?”

Todd nodded. “Oh, I heard. You’ll learn. Fast, if you don’t want to end up swallowing a gallon of saltwater.”

Glen snatched up the wetsuit. Well, there were worse ways to die. He’d researched drowning while writing this book, and evidently, it wasn’t so bad. Maybe preferable to Nate and his enormous future brother-in-law gutting him.

Glen stabbed a finger at Nate. “Next time either of you want legal advice, I’m charging double.”

Todd and Nate’s laughter followed him inside.

***

Two hours later, Glen had an epiphany—likely brought on by bone-deep exhaustion and ingesting too much salt water.

He slumped gasping on Bounty Bay’s beach with Nate beside him.

“I really suck,” Glen said.

“Worst I’ve ever seen.” Nate shifted his smug, green-eyed gaze to Glen, then turned to look at the distant shape of Todd, waiting on his board for the next wave set. “Thought with your reflexes and good balance, you might’ve improved. Turns out, no. You still suck.”

Glen coughed, his chest sore from hacking sea water from his lungs. “Better give up my dreams of taking out the New Zealand surf champ’s title. Law is less painful, at least.”

“Is it?” Nate continued to study the horizon. “You’re returning to Darth Vader and his minions?”

“You’re mixing movies.” But point taken. “And I don’t know. Work’s the smallest part of the shit spinning around in my head.”

Glen reclined on the gritty sand and laced his hands behind his neck. The sun had come out during Glen’s grueling hour session and now danced across the slow rise and fall of the waves. It was hypnotic, and if he allowed himself to close his eyes, he knew what dreams would rise to haunt him. Staying here in Bounty Bay with Savannah. Writing books, while she taught local kids to believe in themselves—on stage and off of it. Barbecues and fishing trips and hanging out with Nate and Todd and their families. Reconnecting with Jamie and his nephews during the school holidays…one day, he and Savannah taking their kids to play in the sun, sand, and surf.

“Told Savannah you love her yet?”

Glen’s eyes popped open. “This is the intervention part of the surf intervention?” He angled his head toward Nate.

“Yup.”

“Guys don’t talk about this kind of thing.”

“We do at a surf intervention. Todd started it when he took me out for the first time, asking me what my intentions were with Lauren. You don’t refuse to answer Todd Taylor when he puts you on the spot.”

“Huh.”

“So, unless you want Todd giving you the stink-eye before he rips your arm off— because he’s adopted Savannah as another little sister—we’ll ignore the guy rule of not talking about feelings, and you’ll tell me what the hell is going on with you and Sav.”

“You could ask her that, then help a guy out so I have a clue.”

Glen sat up, draping his arms over his knees, a bitter taste forming in his mouth. A taste he identified as bone-shattering fear. While falling off a surfboard and being thrust under huge volumes of saltwater potentially hiding creatures that could eat you was scary, facing rejection from Savannah filled him with terror.

“My aunt once asked me what happened the night after Sav’s performance—she wanted to know who the Good Samaritan had been. I told her I didn’t have a clue.”

Nate paused as a teenager on a four-wheel bike blasted past them on the hard-packed sand.

“But I always wondered if it was you,” he continued after the bike’s exhaust faded. “And I saw what she meant to you the day I told you she’d been accepted into the New Zealand School of Drama. That Liam was moving with her to Wellington.”

“Ancient history,” Glen said.

“Yep. But I’m assuming you’ve grown a bigger pair than you had at twenty, and you won’t let her walk away this time before you tell her how you feel.”

“Like you told Lauren before you bolted like someone applied a horsewhip to your ass?”

A sand-ball splattered against the back of Glen’s borrowed wetsuit. “Heard about that, did you?”

“Kathy got a kick out of telling me the story.”

Nate grunted. “I was an idiot. I couldn’t admit that I was in love with Lauren, and it nearly cost me everything.” More sand hit Glen’s back. “So don’t be an idiot. Spill your guts. Who knows? Maybe Sav loves you in return.”

Todd sloshed through the shallows toward them, his surfboard tucked under his arm.

“Maybe,” Glen said.

Maybe he’d find the courage to do now what he hadn’t had the courage to do a decade ago.

***

Savannah stretched, luxuriating in the feel of cotton sheets against bare skin. Warm, sated, and still amused at Glen’s frustration at being conned into a surfing session. Before he left, he’d kissed her until she nearly dragged him back into bed.

She sighed into the pillow, inhaling the delicious scent of Eau-de-Glen, which still permeated the pillowcase. It set off a little ache low in her belly that spread upwards to dig claws into her heart. Sav shuffled to the edge of the bed and sat up.

Why was it suddenly so damn hard to breathe? She rubbed the aching spot in her chest and stood. Could she have possibly fallen in love with him?

Once, filming a particularly emotional scene in a movie that never broke any box office records, the director said to her, “This is the man you’re madly, passionately, and uncontrollably in love with. He’s being tender and sweet to you, so look at him the way you look at your husband!”

Simple, right?

Only Sav had no idea how she looked at her husband. She didn’t feel the way a woman madly, passionately, uncontrollably in love should feel. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever known that feeling. So, she’d dredged up a murky memory of a young man who’d been tender and sweet to her. She couldn’t remember his face or his name, but while those details were frustratingly absent, the emotional imprint left by that memory hadn’t been. Harnessing those emotions, that feeling, she’d aced the scene in one take.

Savannah positioned herself in front of the full-length mirror. She smoothed her hands over her hips—which had definitely lost some padding, yay vegetables—and cupped her breasts, the nipples still tender and flushed pink from this morning’s early encounter with Glen’s jaw. She raised her chin, mussed hair spilling over her shoulder, and pictured Glen’s face after he’d kissed her goodbye.

Oh, crap.

The mirror doppelgänger’s mouth curved into a dreamy smile, her eyes gone glassy and soft. Either Sav was drugged by the green tea Glen made her before taking off with the guys, or…

Or she was a woman in love.

The dreamy smile faded to a knife-thin grimace. No. She couldn’t be. Not when there was so much at stake in L.A.

Unless… Savannah turned on the shower, barely waiting for the water to heat before stepping under the spray. She needed to think logically.
Give up L.A.?
She shampooed her hair. Only a few weeks ago, the idea of blowing this audition would’ve made her break out in hives. Now? Well, she still had
High Rollers
. While it may not have millions behind it like a new sitcom, she enjoyed working with her co-stars, and it meant living in Auckland.

With Glen.

Excitement bubbled through her as she rinsed and dried off. Another six months to a year with
High Rollers
and her agent could knock on her door with a better opportunity. Plenty of time for her and Glen to see if their feelings were real and to work out an agreeable compromise.

Sav slipped back into the master bedroom. She stole one of Glen’s freshly laundered tee shirts and slipped it on, loving the little shiver that rippled through her at the thought of him peeling it off with a teasing laugh once he got home. First, though, a phone call to her agent from the deck.

***

Savannah stared at the phone in her hand as if it had turned into a tarantula. She shoved it onto the small patio table and strode to the edge of the deck. In the distance was the long, blue curve of Bounty Bay’s beach, where Glen, Nate, and Todd were male-bonding over the surf. Sav closed her eyes, straining to hear the distant sigh of the sea. Instead, the only thing she heard was the echo of her agent’s voice telling her she’d been trying to get in touch with Sav for the last two days.

“There won’t be a second season of
High Rollers
, sorry,” the woman had said in her perfectly cultured but not apologetic So-Cal accent. The New Zealand production company had serious concerns about the ratings and blah-blah-blah. Sav tuned the agent out, barely listening to her litany of how
High Rollers
didn’t matter because once more, Hollywood stardom was within reach.

Sav’s throat squeezed shut, as though a small swarm of bees had stung her repeatedly, causing an allergic reaction.
Breathe
, she reminded her lungs. Keep the oxygenated blood circulating through her stone-cold heart.

An engine rumbled as it shifted gears along the driveway.

Oh, God, the guys are back
. Perfect-freaking-timing.

She’d been fooling herself ever since Tom and Jamie left. She had to let Glen go. But she’d shoved everything aside and reveled in a few more days alone with him. Now that
High Rollers
was a bust, what choice did she have? It was kinder to make a clean break.