---

Tilly stared at her great-aunt’s neat penmanship until her vision blurred. Mary and Jim’s newfound relationship marred by the ugly stain of racism? Her fingers hovered at the edge of the page, eager to flip it over and continue the story. If she knew anything about Mary, she knew her strength of character wouldn’t bow to something like people’s disapproval.

So she’d savor her aunt’s words, not gulp them down like a cheap bargain-basement paperback. She closed the journal, set it on her nightstand, and rolled out of bed. It was a new day and even though she was running on empty—she’d barely slept thanks to her own mind-blowing first kiss two nights before—she had a to-do list for the day that didn’t involve stewing over Noah. 

Morning routine completed, Tilly worked dedicatedly on her developing script until her stomach began to growl. She needed fuel in her belly if she was to start tackling the first of Southern Seas’ guest rooms that afternoon. Sorting and packing boxes seemed a safer deal than following Noah around town. While it’d been fun being on a Tilly version of a stakeout, he was the last person she wanted to see today. 

Space. She needed some big, bubble-ball space between herself and the sexy cop while she sorted out just what exactly their first kiss meant. If it meant anything other than two adults sharing a moment in full view of a screeching native bird.

She pulled on her jacket and headed into town on foot—the great gusts of wind outside put her off the thought of taking Scotty for a spin. Halfmoon Bay was gray and choppy with whitecaps, plumes of spray drifting into the air as the waves slapped against the wharf pylons. She recognized some of the locals as she trudged toward Due South with her hands shoved deep into her pockets.

There was Bree Komeke inside her gift shop/gallery. Tilly had met her and her artist husband, Harley, inside their shop when she’d bought a souvenir T-shirt. Harley had their cute-as-a-button baby boy perched giggling on his shoulders. Next door to the gift shop was a beauty salon, and the owner, Holly, was chatting to a client in one of the two cutting-station chairs. Holly glanced up and caught Tilly’s gaze through the window and waved. Tilly had also stopped to talk to her a few days ago with promises to make an appointment to get a conditioning treatment. 

She continued on along the foreshore road, wind whipping her hair around her face. Once she arrived outside the pub’s picture windows, she squinted through the salt-spray-speckled glass to see if she recognized anyone inside. There was one certain someone she was hoping to see, only she had no idea what he looked like.

Following the path to the pub’s front door, she caught a glimpse of a man in a button-down shirt, chatting to the bartender. West, she remembered. Piper’s man. Tilly slipped inside the pub and made a beeline for the bar. Both men caught sight of her and stopped talking about whatever they’d been talking about. Awkward much? 

“Hi there,” she said.

West’s face creased into a warm smile and the bartender, Kip, who she’d learned was engaged to Carly, left with a wave to serve a customer who’d just stepped up to the bar.

“Hi. You’re Tilly, right?”

“That’s me. And you’re Piper’s husband, Ryan?”

“It’s West—only my mum calls me Ryan, though I’m slowly training her out of it.” He cocked his head. “Tilly, short for Matilda? Like the Roald Dahl book?”

“Close. After the Aussie song, ‘Waltzing Matilda.’ Or that’s what my dad used to say to tease.” She cast a side-eye around the olive-green painted walls and old framed photos of fishing boats, skimming over the tables where at least a dozen customers sat. “I don’t suppose you could point Pete Reynolds out to me?”

She looked back to West, whose smile had slipped a notch.

“There he is.” He lifted his chin and Tilly turned to follow the direction of his gaze. Shambling toward the pub’s door was a grizzle-faced elderly man in a threadbare sweater, baggy sweatpants, and a scowl harsh enough to part a group of young women either side of him like the Red Sea. 

“I don’t think he’s in the mood for company,” he added.

Quite unnecessarily, in Tilly’s opinion. The man looked as if he murdered puppies in his sleep. He dug a hand into his pants pocket as he approached the door, listing slightly to one side. Straightening after a couple more shuffling steps, he pulled a set of keys from his pocket in triumph.

Beside her, West swore softly under his breath. “Excuse me for a moment.” He moved around her and, calling Pete’s name, strode across the pub.

Tilly trailed after him, coming to an abrupt halt as she spotted Noah on the other side of Due South’s glass doors. Her heart backflipped into her stomach. He hadn’t yet noticed her. His entire focus was on Pete Reynolds, who was ignoring West and pushing on the glass door that opened inward.

Noah knocked on the door to get Pete’s attention. The elderly man jumped—somewhat guiltily, Tilly thought—and took a step back. The door swung inward and Noah filled the entrance, leaning against the frame oh-so-casually. You’d have to be as drunk as a skunk to mistake anything casual about his arms-folded, I’m the law around here stance.

She wasn’t in a position to see the old man’s face, but she imagined it wasn’t wearing a pleased to see you smile, judging by his gnarled fingers fisting around his key ring. 

West gave Noah a brief salute and turned away. He strolled back to her. “Noah’ll sort Pete out. There’s a table free by the window, and I can take your order if you’d like?”

“No, thanks,” she said, trying to divide her gaze between West, Pete, and Noah. “I’m not staying.”

West shot a look over his shoulder, returning to meet her eyes with a smirk. “Gotcha. Another time, then.” He left her staring at the standoff between Noah and Pete.

Noah’s gaze flickered up to her as she eased around a table of gumboot-wearing men who watched the exchange with quiet interest. The stern expression on Noah’s face didn’t change, but she could’ve sworn the intensity of his stare softened. She’d missed the beginning of their conversation, but as she drew closer she figured the gist of it was a discussion of Pete’s ability to drive.

“You’re over the limit, mate. I’ll take you home. It’s too cold to walk,” Noah said. 

Something fluttered in her chest at the sound of his deep voice. Calm, but authoritative. Not going to put up with any BS, but kind. If he used that voice to order her to strip, he’d soon after have to arrest her for public indecency.

Pete’s cheeks were flushed crimson above his grizzled jaw. “I’m not leaving my bloody truck parked out there ’til tomorra. Some bugger’ll take it for a joy ride and write it off.”

“I can drive you home,” she found herself offering. 

Both men turned inquiring stares on her.

“Who the hell’re you, girl?” Pete demanded.

“I’m Mary Duncan’s great-niece, Tilly. I’m staying at her place. I believe you two knew each other,” she blurted.

Pete’s frown dissolved into what could almost be described as a smile. Not quite, but almost. “Mary was a good sort, she was. A damn good sort.” He slanted a glance at Noah. “I could tell you some stories about your aunty on the way to my place. Reckon you’d be better company than the copper.”

“Deal.” Tilly lifted an eyebrow at Noah. “Is that all right with you, constable?”

“Works for me.” He unfolded his bulk from the doorway and stepped inside, pinning the door open for them. 

Pete dropped his key chain into Tilly’s palm and strode-staggered out of the pub, head held high. 

Even with the smell of spilled beer, wet wool, and warm bodies, Tilly caught a trace of Noah’s scent as she hurried past him. Warm, musky, and infinitely more tempting than the delicious smell of the French fries Kip was delivering to a nearby table. 

Noah lightly touched her elbow as she reached the steps to the sidewalk. “I’ll follow you out to Pete’s and give you a ride back; it’s too far to walk.”

Wind with a hint of rain in it whipped around her face, but even then she had to seal her lips together to prevent a knee-jerk reaction of saying no. She still needed that buffer of space between them, and yet…

“Great.” She fixed a happy to help out smile on her face. “See you there.” 

Then she veered away from him and chased after Pete, who’d made his wobbly way toward an ancient-looking ute parked on the side street next to Due South. She unlocked the doors and helped him into the passenger seat, even though he swatted her hand away when she tried to help him grab the seat belt.

Tilly climbed behind the wheel, grimaced at the cab’s body-odor reek, and started the engine. It coughed grumpily to life—Pete was delusional if he thought anyone would steal this rust bucket—and she pulled away from the curb. In the rearview mirror she spotted Noah’s truck ease out behind her.

“Turn right,” Pete barked as she braked at the stop sign. “Then follow your nose.”

She made the turn, and keeping well below the speed limit, drove along the main road out of town in the opposite direction to Mary’s B&B. She hadn’t ventured far past Due South and the nearby Oban school. Regardless of the sprinkling of rain dripping from the steel gray clouds above, a boisterous game of touch rugby was taking place on the school’s grassy sports field. She cracked the window down for fresh air and the sounds of kids’ laughter drifted into her ears. At least someone was enjoying themselves. She surreptitiously angled her nose toward the open window.

“You were friends with my great-aunt?” She didn’t know how far away from town the man lived, but she didn’t want to miss the opportunity to find out what she could. 

“More on friendly terms than friends.” Pete laced his fingers across his belly and leaned back into his seat. “She always had a kind word for me, did your aunty. A fine woman she was. We’d have a drink now ’n’ then at the pub, reminisce about the good old days, raise a glass to old friends no longer with us. That sorta thing.”

Chills prickled down her spine. “Noah tells me you used to be neighbors with one of the Akurangi family. It wasn’t Jim, by any chance?” She slanted a glance at him to gauge his reaction to the name.

“Oh, aye. That was Jim. We were mates, a long time ago. Back when we were still young fellas with hair on our heads. Drank my fair share of beers at his place while our missuses gossiped over the fence, we did.”

Tilly’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles pressing white against her skin as she guided the rattling truck around a sharp curve in the road. Jim had a missus? A wife? Or did he mean Mary? Because as far as family lore went, Mary had never married. “Jim was married?”

“He was. What was her name again? Martha?” Pete screwed up his face. “No, Maata. That was it. She and Jim were childhood sweethearts. Lovely girl she was, too. Gave him three littlies before she died. M’house is just around the next bend. Slow down.”

Tilly tapped the brakes, her pulse thudding like a bongo drum in her ears as she tried to separate and understand everything Pete was telling her. She couldn’t think of what to ask first, so she started with the obvious. “Jim’s wife died? How old was she?”

“Only in her late twenties. Terribly sad it was,” Pete said. “She’d just popped out the third baby when something went wrong. Female birth complications, I was told.” He pulled a knowing frown and nodded. “Left poor Jim with their five-year-old and a three-year-old, not to mention a newborn.”

“That must’ve been incredibly difficult for him.” 

She flicked a glance up at Noah’s ute that dominated the small rectangular mirror. A strip of afternoon sunlight had broken through the clouds and sparked fire off his windshield so she couldn’t see his face. But she could feel his presence as if he were sitting beside her instead of Pete. His solid, purposeful strength that somehow both calmed and disturbed her in equal measures.

“That it was. Jim was never the same after Maata died. God rest her soul. It’s the blue house—watch out you don’t run over Champ in the driveway.”

Tilly guided the ute to a halt in Pete’s driveway, parking a safe distance away from Champ—a brindle-colored little yeti of a dog who was barking up a storm. There were so many other things she wanted to ask Pete, but now probably wasn’t the time to do it. She unclipped his seat belt for him since he was having difficulty locating it, and slid out of the cab. Noah had pulled in behind her and was already at the passenger door, helping Pete out of it.

“I can walk. I can walk,” Pete grumbled, shaking off Noah’s hand on his elbow.

He proved he could do so by ambling up the driveway toward his front door, Champ running circles around him. God must love drunks and ugly little dogs as neither collided with each other as Pete lurched up the steps. He turned at the top and sent them a baleful glare. 

“Ya coming, then, girl? Can’t get in without my keys.”

Oh, right.

Tilly locked the ute and with a quick side-eye at Noah—watching her in amused silence—she hurried up to Pete’s porch. She offered him the key chain but his shoulders hunched a little and his hands stayed loosely at his sides.

“D’ya mind opening it for me?” he asked. “My eyes aren’t too good nowadays, and I’m feeling a bit out of sorts.”

Tilly studied the downward droop of his mouth and the hollow look in his eyes. Her chest gave a little squeeze, sympathy tightening around her ribs. “Of course.”

There was only one other key on the chain, so she quickly opened the front door. A musty, closed-up-for-too-long smell greeted her, and the hallway stretching out down the center of the house was dark even though it was only early in the afternoon. She’d hazard a guess that Pete had most of the curtains drawn.

“Just drop the keys into that bowl.” He staggered over the threshold, gesturing somewhere off to his left before righting himself and disappearing into an adjoining room.

Tilly poked her head inside the door, took a deep breath—then squeaked when a hand touched her arm. She whirled around. Noah was right beside her and she hadn’t even heard him move. “What are you, some kind of ninja-cop hybrid?”

“Something like that.” He still had dark sunglasses on from the drive over, and damn, his shuttered eyes conjured up all sorts of bad-girl ideas. As if he were a mind reader, Noah shoved his shades onto his head and stepped inside. “I’d better make sure Pete’s okay.”

She went after him, spotting the bowl Pete referenced among a sliding stack of junk mail on a small table. She tossed the key chain into the bowl. “Part of your job description?”

The corner of Noah’s mouth creased up. “Part of being a decent human being. Maybe you could make him a cup of tea?” 

“I can do that. Point me in the direction of the kitchen.” Though with old cooking odors drifting down the hallway, she could probably just follow her nose.

“End of the hall.” For a couple of beats neither of them moved, the space between them filled with a silent but electric crackle of energy. Noah tilted his head and appeared to be studying her with the intensity she would imagine he usually reserved for someone suspected of a crime but had proved to be innocent. “Thanks for helping, Tilly,” he said finally.

A quip about her also being a decent human evaporated out of her suddenly dry mouth. Instead she muttered, “No problem,” and fled down the hallway.

She couldn’t help but think she’d passed some sort of test. And if so, what sort of reward was in store on the ride home?

Twenty minutes later, Tilly clambered up into Noah’s ute. This time, thankfully, fully clothed. They’d settled Pete in his living room with a cup of tea, a sandwich Tilly had scraped together, and the TV switched to reruns of K-Road. She’d kept her mouth glued shut when Pete had insisted on it and Noah shot her an amused glance.

“Get much out of him about your aunt?” Noah asked as he started the engine.

“A little.” She wrapped her arms around her middle and tried to relax into the seat. Not happening.

Not when the man had slid his sunglasses back over his eyes and now looked the epitome of big, bad, sexy cop. She had to stop thinking of him that way—like she had some sort of role-play fetish developing. Oooh, Officer. Use your thick, hard nightstick on me. 

She must’ve made some sort of sound as Noah stopped reversing his truck and half turned toward her, one wrist casually draped over the wheel. Above that wrist there was an abundance of tanned skin-covered muscle all the way up to his shirt sleeve snugly encircling the hard bunch of his bicep. “You okay? Did he say something to upset you?”

Willing away the creep of warmth rising to the surface of her face, she shook her head.

“Nothing like that.” She hugged herself tighter, with all the information Pete had told her spinning around in her head. “At least, not exactly.” 

He yanked on the parking brake, the ute idling quietly. “Talk.”

“Is that an order?”

“You seem to respond better to them,” he said mildly.

She narrowed her eyes at him, but all she got in return was a bland male expression beneath his sunglasses which could have meant anything. “Drive and I’ll tell you. Having you stare at me like I’m about to make a confession is creeping me out.”

That and the quivery sensation in her lower belly which was more like being a little turned on than creeped out. Information she considered was on a need-to-know basis, and from the slight smirk on Noah’s mouth as he released the parking brake and continued to back out of Pete’s driveway, he didn’t need to know.

While he drove—a poster child for defensive driving, of course—she relayed what Pete had told her. She managed to keep to the bare minimum facts without embellishing her recollection with her usual way of heartily sprinkling emotion throughout. Once she’d run out of steam, she fell silent. After a moment, Noah spoke.

“Recap: The Jim in Mary’s photograph had a wife and three kids. That wife wasn’t Mary, but a woman called Maata.” He lightly drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “And Maata died young, leaving Jim to raise their three kids alone.”

“You got it. Hopefully Mary’s journal will explain how she fits into the picture.” Tilly shook her head. “She seemed so crazy about him in the early pages. Something must’ve happened.”

“Something usually does,” he said.

The truck nosed around the last corner and Halfmoon Bay once again spread out in front of them, the water a dull gray with whitecaps blustering under the bobbing boats. The prettiness of the view, with a few more stray spears of sunlight breaking through the clouds and seabirds riding the wind currents through them, didn’t distract Tilly from the edge in Noah’s voice.

“Sounds like some personal experience?” This time she half turned toward him.

His jaw worked, bunching as if he’d bitten down on tinfoil. “I’m a realist. The romantic relationships I see in my world are often seriously screwed up.”

“By your world, you mean back when you lived in Wellington?” Because Oban seemed to be a breeding ground of loved-up couples who put the H in healthy relationships.

“Yeah.” He glanced at Due South as they drove past. “Though Oban has its fair share of dysfunctional relationships. At least while I’ve been here no one’s shot, stabbed, strangled, or poisoned their better half.”

“Proof of your mad policing skills.”

He snorted softly, hitting the turn signal for their street. “Proof I’m wasting my mad skills on this tiny backwater, according to my family, anyway.”

“What you just did for Pete Reynolds wasn’t wasted anything. That was community policing at its very best. Sorry not sorry, but your family is wrong.”

He flicked her an unreadable glance after he’d made the turn and remained silent. She thought he’d completely closed down the topic when he let out a deep exhale.

“Some days I wonder if I should go back. If I’m losing my edge settling petty disputes and writing fines for misdemeanors.”

“Do you want to go back?” she asked.

Another deep exhale as he cruised past his house and parked in her driveway. He switched off the engine and leaned back, tipping his head to stare at the roof of the cab. “Let me ask you something. What do you think the main reason is men and women join the police?”

Tilly unclipped her safety belt. “They have a strong sense of justice?”

Noah made a game-show buzzer noise. “Nope. Try again.”

“They want to help people?”

He pulled off his sunglasses and tossed them on the dashboard. Repeated the game-show buzzer noise. “Strike two.”

“That’s a really annoying, juvenile sound, you know.” 

He rolled his head toward her. “Last guess. Get it right and I won’t buzz you.”

She mock glared at him, her pulse doing a little tap dance at the base of her throat because she knew his teasing was a thinly veiled shield to protect the hurt that lay beneath. “If I say because you get to boss people around or because you get to wear a dangerously attractive stab-proof vest, you’ll buzz me again. So why don’t you just tell me?”

“Do you think I look dangerously attractive in my uniform, Tilly?” 

The tone of his voice dropped into melted caramel territory. Warm and gooey, slowing her reaction time as if she were wading in it. She licked suddenly dry lips. Um, maybe she was spending too much time in police cars since she’d arrived on Stewart Island. “Don’t change the subject.”

“We’ll revisit it later, then.” 

He unclipped his safety belt and twisted sideways in his seat to face her, the square meterage of the cab shrinking by a quarter thanks to the sheer bulk of him. Her gaze skittered along the length of his strongly muscled thighs, past the vest—which in all honesty wasn’t that attractive—and along his knife-edge jaw to firm, beautifully sculptured lips that made her weak-kneed and grateful she was still seated. A woman with lesser willpower couldn’t have resisted the lure of running her fingertips over the stubble turning to scruff on his chin. Just to see if it was soft or prickly. Just to touch him in some way.

As if she’d transmitted the desire across her forehead in neon lettering, Noah reached across the console and captured her hand. South of her stomach gave a sweet, hot squeeze as he rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. 

“Most of us,” he said, “want to become a police officer to make a difference. In our community, in our country, we want to make a difference.” His thumb continued to stroke the back of her hand and the fluttery dramatics going on inside her ramped up. “It’s as simple and as complicated as that.”

With effort she kept her tongue under lock and key. To her it seemed as obvious as the chiseled nose on his face—that even in her brief time in Oban she could tell he was making a worthwhile difference to the community. Telling him so wouldn’t be anything he hadn’t already heard, and not believed.

Cue female rashness and the mantra drummed into all writers: show, don’t tell.

One second she was chastely seated, the next she’d half lunged across the console to cup Noah’s face in her hands. And, oh, his facial hair was both prickly and soft. His skin warm, his mouth an irresistible temptation. 

He twisted his head, pressing his lips into her palm. “Is this a thank you for your service moment?” 

“Something like that.” The words came out a little breathier than intended, since she was already imagining the feel of his mouth on her.

God, he’d better be prepared to be thanked but good. 

Tilly drew his lips down level with hers, savoring the tremor of blood rushing at full speed through her veins in anticipation. Her eyelids slipped shut and she just breathed him in, the heady scent of raw masculinity giving her a delicious dizzy moment. 

Here there be tygers…

Or dragons, as medieval cartographers would add to sections of their maps when they didn’t know what lay ahead for the unwary sailor. And by kissing Noah for a second time, she was crossing into the unknown.

What the hell.

Her lips still curving in a smile, Tilly pressed her mouth to his. The roller-coaster plunge she’d felt the first time Noah kissed her returned—and this time it felt more akin to leaping out of an aeroplane. The unexpectedness of the connection, the jolt she’d brushed off as a first kiss only sizzle, parted her mouth in surprise and wiped her brain clean of further thought.

Noah used her mindlessness to his advantage by sliding one big hand into her hair and deepening the kiss with the light flick of his tongue. His fingers lightly massaging her nape, he melted her with deep, drugging, unhurried kisses. Like he was taking his time to prove he could disarm every weapon she had to resist him in her arsenal, with just his mouth.

And his hands. Damn.

She was a hot mess just from him touching her neck—she’d probably go off like a blowtorch if he explored anywhere south of her collarbone. 

Again—what the hell.

Without letting his mouth escape, Tilly fumble-crawled over the console and somehow wedged herself onto his lap. It was a tighter squeeze than she’d anticipated, with the bottom of the steering wheel jammed into her spine. However, something just as hard was lodged between her thighs, and of that she wasn’t complaining. With a moan of lust mixed with ouch, that’s uncomfortable, she pulled her mouth from Noah’s and arched into him in an attempt to escape the steering wheel melding permanently with her lower back.

He gripped her butt, and she was gratified to note—in between squirming motions—that his breathing was ragged. “What’re you doing, Til?”

She made a less than graceful attempt at bowing sideways to reach the driver’s seat release lever. “Showing you my appreciation, dammit.”

He gave a strangled groan and his hips pistoned up, grinding against her with such an achingly pleasurable friction that the gasp of his name leaving her lips came out more like a shout. His bigger hand pushed hers aside as he reached for the lever, then she was flung forward onto his chest as the seat scooted backward. She sprawled over him, her breathless giggle cut off when the hand still on her butt cheek held her tighter against him and his other fisted lightly in her hair.

What control she’d had over the situation—and it was doubtful she’d had much—was handed to Noah right then, wrapped up in a pretty red bow. Coincidently the same color as her bra and panties, which she hoped he’d discover in due course.

“I make it a rule not to do women in my patrol car,” he said.

“Noted,” she gasped.

He thrust against her once more, his gaze on her mouth so hot she could almost feel her lips chapping. His fingers flexed, the caught strands of her hair making her scalp tingle almost as deliciously as the feel of his stubble scraping her skin. Dipping his head, he slid his mouth across hers. Firm, damp lips clung and teased her sensitive skin. As he continued to torment her with pulsating, wet kisses, he caught her spread thigh in one big hand and rocked her against his hardness in a matching rhythm.

A telltale quiver quickened deep inside her. She let out an embarrassingly aroused whimper as she ground into him, digging her nails into his upper arms as she moved. She canna take any more, Captain. She’s gonna blow! Caught between a giggle and a groan at the appropriate Star Trek quote popping into her head, her brain translated the sharp knocking sound beside her as mini explosions.

Except they weren’t. Someone was knocking on the window.

Noah jerked upright and Tilly whoopsied backward, her butt connecting with the steering wheel’s center and a deafening horn blast ensuing a split second later. Her gaze collided with Noah’s, then swung toward the slightly misted-up window.

But it wasn’t misted up enough to conceal the man bending down to stare at them with a wide smile on his face.