Free Fly with Me by Angela Verdenius Page A

before
swallowing. With a satisfied sigh, he pushed the plate away and
pulled the cup of hot tea forward. “Ash, I love you.”
    She dimpled at
him from across the table.
    Scott rolled
his eyes. “You love Cheryl, you love Ash, hell, you even love
Robby.”
    Elissa glanced
at Ash.
    “Robby runs
the café at the servo,” Ash explained. “Cheryl owns the local town
café.”
    “Simon loves
anyone who can cook him a decent meal.” Scott paused. “Or simply
buy him a decent meal. He’s not that fussy.”
    “What can I
say?” Leaning back in the chair, Simon rubbed his flat abdomen and
grinned. “Food and me are like bees and honey. We just belong.”
    “That’s so
wrong, and so weirdly right.” Scott pushed to his feet. “I’m going
to get dressed for work. Seeing as you got a free breaky, you can
give me a ride.”
    “Sure.” Simon
took a mouthful of tea.
    Getting to her
feet, Ash started gathering the dishes.
    With every
intention of helping, Simon started to stand, only to have Ash
point the fork she was holding at him. “You stay right there.
You’ve got a day of work ahead of you. I’ll handle this.”
    “I’ll help.”
Elissa almost jumped to her feet.
    Okay, she
stood, but he bet that inside she was jumping. Elissa Baylon might
look like she had everything under control, but there was a whole
lot more going on underneath that stoic demeanour than she was
letting on.
    The woman was
a walking contradiction. He could see it, feel it, she gave herself
away with little things. A finger nervously tapping the handle of
the knife, the straightening of a napkin that was already ruler
straight. And she sat like she had a poker up her shapely derriere,
shoulders back, spine stiff.
    Did she ever
slump, ever relax? Oh yeah, wait, she had - when she was crying her
eyes out on the balcony, and again when she relaxed back in his van
and listened to the music from his CD. He knew for a fact that she
wasn’t even aware that she had sung softly along with it.
    He’d known,
had felt those dulcet tones slide into his soul, slide into his
senses, the beauty of her voice fill him with contentment. At least
for a short time until they got to Scott’s home. Once the music was
off, she wrapped all that coolness around herself, smiled at him
with a guardedness as she walked with him up the veranda steps, and
disappeared into the depths of the house as soon as Scott met them
in the hallway.
    Part of him
wanted to follow but now wasn’t the time. He wasn’t sure exactly
when the time would be to face her up, but it would come. Until
then he waited to see if she’d say something, though he seriously
doubted it now. She was still pretending, though it was obvious
that she was waiting for him recognise her.
    If only she
knew he’d recognised her as soon as he’d seen her. He’d not
forgotten her, not forgotten the way she cried all alone on a
balcony, her smile, her kiss, the way she’d sat beside him. The way
she’d left.
    Normally if a
woman didn’t want to acknowledge their meeting he’d have accepted
it and just moved on, content to leave things lie, but with Elissa
it was different. He didn’t know why, it just was, so he did what
he always did and followed his instincts.
    His instincts
had Elissa firmly in his sights.
    Sipping on the
hot tea, he studied her as she chatted to Ash and wiped the
dishes.
    Man, she was
pretty. Her cool beauty just begged to be ruffled. He wondered what
she’d look like with all that silky-looking hair tousled and
spilling over her shoulders, the coolness of her features flushed,
a smile curving those lush lips, her so-perfectly fitted shirt that
she’d changed into before breakfast a little askew with the top
three buttons undone to reveal what he just knew would be a
magnificent cleavage, going by the way those mounds pushed against
the material.
    The woman who
had sung at the city pub had been alive with the music, animated,
different to the cool, collected woman who smiled and