Burning Love Read online

  The birds didn’t seem all that happy at being reunited in the box, screeching and banging and flapping their wings, so that Richo had a job to keep the lid from surging open, the birds surprisingly strong despite their immaturity.

  “That’s it,” said Caleb, rubbing his gloves together, shouting to make himself heard over the cacophony of shrieks and bangs coming from the box. “You might want to cover the box with a blanket so it’s darker and they think they’re back in the chimney and settle again.”

  And Eleanor nodded up at him over the squawking box and he saw a cheeky glimmer in her eyes. “You really think they’ll settle?”

  He couldn’t help but smile, even as he shrugged and folded up a tarp. “It’s worth a shot.”

  They were on their way back to the station, the completion of the incident radioed in, when Richo chortled to himself.

  “What?” said Caleb.

  “My mum always used to complain when the five of us kids piled into the back of the car after school. Said it sounded like a box of birds.” He grinned. “Poor Mum, now I know what she meant.”

  The rest of the week passed, happily, just as uneventfully for Caleb. He was looking forward to Sunday and working at the Ashton Show and seeing Ava again. And then he remembered the feel of her clever tongue swirling around his dick, and he was looking forward to a whole lot more besides. There were times he kind of wished he hadn’t agreed to this arrangement, where they lived and worked separate lives and came together only occasionally to burn up the sheets – thinking how good would it be to go home to Ava every night, and have her and her hot body on tap. But that wasn’t how their arrangement worked. Sex was what he’d offered and she’d accepted. Neither of them had been looking for a relationship and he’d been happy to agree with her terms if it meant having the best sex of his life.

  Besides, after Angie, he could see how quickly the little happy ever fantasy could turn south. Nope, he thought with a sigh, remembering the grief and pain that had been those torrid years, better to have a taste of paradise every now and then, than risk paradise turning into hell on earth.

  Even if it didn’t stop him thinking about it.

  But he’d see her Sunday, and meanwhile, there was plenty to do at the station to keep him busy. There was a fountain on a main street due to a burst water main, and he’d spent a morning in wet weather gear directing vehicles around while the water department battled to turn off the supply. There’d been a primary school visit, where they’d turned on the flashing lights and the siren to give the kids a thrill and show how cool it was to be a firefighter while educating kids to call triple zero in an emergency in the process. And then there were days where the entire crew spent time checking and polishing every single thing that moved or not on their appliances.

  This was the flipside of the hard-core recovery work, and, while Caleb loved the adrenaline rush of getting in and getting dirty, there was a lot to be said for tackling the day-to-day nitty-gritty of station work so that when the going got tough, the equipment didn’t let them down.

  And, meantime, everyone it seemed kept an eye on the weather forecast. They’d been blessed with a good spring season, with good rainfall, but with that had come high growth in the understory. And summer was proving uncharacteristically gentle so far. December had morphed into January with the occasional burst of heat, but thankfully with none of the heatwaves that rolled on with temperatures well over the old century for days and nights. It was when the temperatures soared and that hot north wind came down from the baking dry interior of Australia that put the wind up everyone, and had every nostril twitching. A fire in the Adelaide Hills in those circumstances was damn near unstoppable.

  The forecast for the Ashton Show looked okay for now, but there was hot weather following, he could see on the forecast, a slow-moving high predicted to lob over the red desert centre of Australia and stay there, directing hot northerly winds straight down towards them.

  Nobody was looking forward to that.

  Caleb was in his spare room doing bench presses the day before the show when Ava surprised him by calling. “Are you free tonight? I want to show you something. I’ll be in the studio.” There was excitement in her voice that was contagious and Caleb found himself at her house inside twenty minutes.

  As his feet crunched down the gravel path from the car, his eyes couldn’t help but be drawn to the spectacular view Ava had over the Uriarra Gorge, with its steep cliffs and treed valleys and ridgetops – terrain both beautiful and hard to protect in a bushfire situation – and he made a mental note to check Ava’s rooftop sprinkler system given the upcoming weather forecast.

  He understood people wanted to live in the Adelaide Hills. Hell, he’d grown up hereabouts himself with his brother, with an entire range of hills and valleys for their back yard. Together they’d roamed far and wide, terrorizing the local wildlife, by sending mobs of grazing kangaroos scattering as they’d chased them out of grasslands, and climbing trees trying to reach the koalas nestled high in the branches, only to have them climb even further out of range. In turn they’d been terrorized when they’d stumbled upon the odd snake basking in the sunshine on the path in front of them.

  While in winter they’d played alongside the rushing creeks and waterfalls of the valleys and gorges, chasing frogs and sending pieces of bark scudding down the rapid waters.

  It had been the best kind of childhood and he knew better than anyone how special it was to live up this way. But he’d seen the fires too, that had ravaged the hills from time to time, that scorched the earth and left nothing in their wake, and were an ever present danger to life and property each and every summer, and one look at where Ava lived and a proper bushfire sprinkler system had been the first thing he’d suggested she get installed. That and a retreat room behind the studio where the studio backed into the earth wall of the slight rise behind, in case things got too rough and there was no way out. And, to her credit, she’d seen the sense in that and agreed. He’d put in the sprinklers and diesel pump and he’d lined the retreat room with concrete panelling to insulate it. Small things, but worthwhile, especially for a woman on her own.

  He’d checked the diesel pump was working okay before the beginning of summer, and made sure she checked it weekly, but it was high time he checked it again.

  There was music coming from the studio and Caleb recognised it as Ava’s favourite playlist. He didn’t know the names of any of the singers – his music tastes had stalled sometime around the Red Hot Chili Peppers – but that just added to the mystery and the exoticism that was Ava. God only knew how he’d ever got the courage to approach her.

  She was working on a canvas when he rapped on the glass. She looked up and smiled and it was a good thing he wasn’t flammable because one hundred watts zapped its way straight to his groin. She met him half way across the room, taking his head in her hands, the kiss she gave him fast and furious and full of promise, and when she put his head away, her cognac eyes were damned near glowing.

  “Come and see,” she said, taking his hand and leading him to the easel.

  “It’s the first one, remember? When you were looking at the still life.”

  He blinked. He remembered. But he also remembered it was the size of a page in a book. This was at least two feet high. “What happened to the other one? The small one?”

  “That was just a sketch.” She laced her fingers in his. “Well? What do you think?”

  What could he say? He’d thought the sketch was the real deal, but now he looked at the likeness of his back, his muscles rendered in myriad shades of charcoal and oil pastels that seemed to capture the very texture of his skin in the skilful use of light and shade. And there, on the back of his arm, the last three letters of his tattoo.

  He frowned as he pointed it out. “I thought you said nobody would know it was me.”

  “How could anyone recognise you from that?”

  “My brother might.”

  “Is he in the market for
artworks and likely to be at the exhibition?”

  “Well, no.” There was that. “But—”

  “I’ve got a couple of ideas for others,” she said, discounting his protest without waiting to hear it.

  “I thought you said you’d know it when you saw it.”

  “I know. But the exhibition’s in less than a month, and I need to get busy. And if they don’t work, we’ll try something else.” Her lips curved into a smile. “So I was thinking...’

  Which was how Caleb found himself naked in Ava’s shower not ten minutes later, hands behind his neck with water cascading down over his upturned face and down his chest and abdomen, while Ava sat on the lid of the toilet seat and scribbled feverishly in her sketchbook. She was drawing his torso, he knew, and drawing the line at chin and hips, but for the life of him he couldn’t rid himself this feeling of being watched, and it showed.

  “Do other life models have this problem?” he asked, his cock swelling with every passing minute.

  “Quit complaining,” she simply said.

  “It’s hardly fair,” he said into the stream of water. “I’m standing under here naked and you’re fully dressed.

  “Is that what you’re bitching about? If you promise not to move, I can fix that.”

  “What did you say?” he spluttered.

  “Don’t move!”

  So he stayed right where he was with the water pouring over his head but somehow the knowledge she’d got herself buck naked too didn’t help with his problem one little bit. He didn’t have to open his eyes to know exactly how she’d look sitting there without a stitch on, with her slim shoulders and her slender waist flaring to her hips, and her breasts peaked with those gorgeous dark nipples he was a major fan of.

  He groaned. “It’s not helping!” If this wasn’t water torture, he didn’t know what was.

  “It’s okay. I’m done.”

  “Thank god. So what have you got planned next,” he asked, snapping off the taps and reaching for a towel.

  And she rose from the side of bath to meet him wearing a smile and nothing more. “Me.”

  Chapter Five

  They made love on her big bed watching the sun go down outside her big picture windows and then she sketched him lying on his stomach, his arms splayed, on the unmade sheets while the sunlight streamed through the window, making his skin glow.

  “I’m going for a look of utter abandonment here,” she told him, her pencil flying in strokes over the page.

  From the pillows where his head was buried came a muffled groan. “I think I’ve found it.”

  She smiled. He had good reason to look spent. They both did. But she’d got to feeling sexy as hell watching Caleb in that shower with the water running in streamlets over him, so what was a girl supposed to do but ravage him?

  And she owed him. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d enjoyed her work more. Maybe it was because that last still life had been so problematic, but it was refreshing to be working on something completely different. And now, given Caleb’s cooperation, she’d have the thirty artworks she’d agreed to supply for her upcoming exhibition without having to resort to including any she wasn’t quite in love with herself, the ones that didn’t quite make the grade for whatever reason.

  Because she had no doubts about this series though, as his beautiful body took form on the page. These were definitely going to make the grade. Maybe it was something she should do more of. It was such a pleasure to be working with the human form again, something she hadn’t done for too long.

  The buzz of her phone interrupted her. “Hang on,” she told him, conscious of the setting sun and wanting to finish her sketch while she still had the light. “I’ll be right back.” There were only a handful of people who had her number and even less who had cause to call tonight and she’d already decided before she picked up that it must be the Evan from EJ’s Gallery wanting a progress report from her before actively promoting the upcoming exhibition. There were times she almost wished she had someone who could handle all the administration and marketing of her career so she could fully concentrate on her art, but then she remembered Rene and his lies and the bitter disappointment of learning yet another person had betrayed her and she wasn’t prepared to go there again. Besides. The way the collection was coming together, this was one call she wouldn’t mind taking. It would only take a moment.

  “Evan,” she said, picking up.

  Except it wasn’t him.

  And as she listened, just like the fading colour in the sky, all the light and colour in her life leached away, until she sat down trembling in the half-light, her hand still cradling her phone, traitor to the dark world she’d never quite left behind.

  “Ava?”

  She blinked, sucking in air, not knowing how long she’d been sitting here in the gathering gloom. “I’m here,” she said, although her voice even to her sounded a long way away.

  “What’s wrong?” he said, kneeling down on his haunches alongside her. “Who was that?”

  She stared blindly ahead of her through scratchy eyes, although there were no tears. She’d always known there would be no tears when it happened. It was half her life ago and she’d shed all the tears she was ever going to shed, until there was nothing left behind but a cold, hard anger. Although she’d never expected to feel so – blindsided.

  “It was someone from a law firm in Singapore. I didn’t catch his name.” She didn’t even know how they had her number. How the hell did they get her number?

  “What did they want?”

  “It’s my parents.” She turned her head towards him, saw the concern in his eyes, and had to turn away. “There was a car crash. They’re dead.”

  “Oh, Ava.” He put his arms around her, and yet all she could feel was the oppressive hand of her father lifting, knowing he could never hurt her again. That, and a dank blanket of remembrance.

  “It’s okay,” she said, shrugging out of his embrace, wishing she could shrug off the memories as easily. “Really, it’s okay.” She looked out the window, saw the day had turned to twilight. “Damn,” she said, rising from the chair. “We lost the light.”

  “Ava?”

  “I’m sorry, Caleb. I’ll just have to try to finish from what I’ve got.” She attempted a smile as she headed for the fridge. “I’m sure I won’t have any trouble remembering how you look naked. Are you hungry? I can make us up something.”

  Caleb sprang up beside her and the next moment the lights in the kitchen burst on, transforming dusk into daylight. She winced at the stark bright of the lights, and then he was by her side. He was wearing just a towel slung low on his hips. How hadn’t she noticed that little detail before? So unlike her.

  “Why are you worried about eating? For god’s sake, Ava, you just lost your parents.”

  “Yes, I know. I thought it was Evan Jones – the gallery owner – checking up to see how the collection was going.” She gave a little half laugh. “I sure got that wrong. Oh well, are you sure you don’t want something to eat?”

  Beside her, Caleb ran one hand through his hair and sighed. “Listen, Ava, I know this must be hard for you, being so far away and all.”

  “What baffles me is how they got my number.”

  “What?”

  “I never gave it to anyone, let alone my father’s solicitors. So how did they get it?”

  “Is that the most important thing to be worrying about right now?”

  She pulled open the fridge door and stared blankly at the shelves. She’d always known it wouldn’t take much to track down her new name if they’d wanted to – she was an artist with a website and who’d featured in at least a dozen newspaper and online articles – she wasn’t exactly invisible. But her private phone number? “Why would they even want it?” Unless it was so her father could reach out, even in death, to let her know that she’d never really escaped. That he was still in control.

  She shivered. Never again.

  “You’ve had a shock,
” said the man beside her. “I felt like the ground had pulled from beneath my feet when I heard my grandfather had died, even though Leonard was a much older man. It’s the finality of death. There’s no going back.”

  She blinked over at him. It was like he was having a conversation about something else or why would he even say such a thing? Why would he imagine that she’d want to go back?

  She pulled a bottle from inside the fridge door. “I think I need a drink.”

  He found her a glass and she gave thanks as she poured herself a sizeable slug. At least he hadn’t tried to talk her out of that. She made to put the bottle back in the fridge and thought better of it, picking up both glass and bottle and heading for the sofa.

  She took a gulp of her wine, only half aware of the sound of Caleb moving around behind her. How long had her father known where she was? Had he had his cronies watching her all this time? What else did they know?

  And all this time, she’d imagined she was free. Out of sight. Out of reach. Safe.

  Bastards.

  Even in death they wouldn’t let her go.

  Caleb put a beer down on the coffee table and set himself down beside her, swivelled sideways, his arm along the sofa at her back. He reached his other hand over and squeezed her. “I’m sorry, Ava, it’s rough. I know.”

  And suddenly his assumption that he knew something of what she was feeling was too much.

  She pulled her hand free. “What makes you think you know anything of what I’m feeling?” It might be rough news, difficult, even problematic, but he knew nothing of the why. He knew nothing of why she might in fact be happy her parents were dead.

  At last.

  She took another gulp of her wine too fast, the cold liquid splashing on her cheek. She swiped at it with the back of her hand while she worked out whether it was even worth trying to explain, and promptly decided it wasn’t.