Free The Marriage Merger by Sandy Curtis

of the women of his acquaintance
that it was like being thrust into a bright Spring morning after a
long, bleak winter.
    He caught a slight scent of lavender again as
Jenna leaned towards him to watch something on his side of the
street. His grandmother! He hadn’t thought of her in years. She had
been a haven of love and caring in his childhood. An infrequent
haven, sadly. His father had taken him and Alicia to their
grandmother’s home in Cairns every school holidays in the years
before her death when Braden was eleven.
    Happy memories of cuddles and baking and
story-book reading immersed him in a flood of nostalgia. The big
old Queenslander home with its wide verandahs and the backyard of
enormous mango trees and hiding places. Their grandmother had let
them build a cubby-house from old timber and it had become a fort,
a ship, a castle, in their childish imagination. And she always
smelled of lavender. Of lavender and love.
    A wave of sadness washed over him. His
Grandmother’s death had been as grievous as his mother’s leaving.
With one he had lost the only motherly love he had ever known, with
the other he had lost all chance to gain her love. If there had
ever been any there to start with, he thought bitterly.
    He shook his head to clear his thoughts and
swerved into a parking spot.
    “The ice-creamery is a couple of shops down.”
His voice was slightly husky but neither Jenna nor Caitlin seemed
to notice.
    They sat under a shady tree and watched
swimmers and surf board riders enjoying the perfect rolling waves
of Laguna Bay. A light breeze, fresh with the ocean’s salt, cooled
them and melted their ice-creams as fast as they could eat them.
Braden bit into his cone, his eyes watching Jenna’s tongue as it
slid around the melting ice-cream, drawing the thick liquid into
her mouth.
    His imagination took over and the hairs on
his body rose as he imagined her tongue tracing warm trails over
his body. He moved abruptly as more than his hairs rose and he had
to force his mind to concentrate on less erotic thoughts. Hell,
maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
    When he’d seen Jenna’s grumpiness this
morning he had regretted his impulse of the previous evening to
make her jealous. He wondered how she would react if she knew he
had spent a boring and frustrated night making small talk while his
thoughts were occupied with the exquisite memory of her beautiful
body emerging from his swimming pool.

    As they drove back through Noosa after
exploring the shops and having lunch Braden casually asked, “Would
you mind if we call in at Veronica’s home? She has some paperwork I
really should take down to Brisbane with me tomorrow.”
    Jenna looked sharply at his profile, but
there was no teasing glint in his eye. If anything, he looked
almost apologetic. And this was the first time he had mentioned
going back to Brisbane. Did he have an ulterior reason for wanting
to call in on Veronica? Or was he just so anxious to see her after
last night that it didn’t matter that Jenna and Caitlin were with
him. Jealousy warred with common sense and politeness but finally
she replied, “Caitlin’s tired, but if it won’t take too long, I
suppose it will save you an extra drive back here.”
    “Thank you. I promise we won’t be long.”
    It was precisely because Jenna and Caitlin
were with him that made Braden decide to pick up the paperwork now,
rather that come back on his own in the evening. Veronica was
becoming more blatant in her sexual overtures and he knew she was
not a woman to be put off easily. But with the merger agreement
still in the discussion stage he was loathe to reject her outright.
She could cause a great deal of trouble for him if she chose to do
so. Not that he would run from a fight with her, but at the moment
he had a large project pending and it was more expedient to keep
her on side.
     
    Braden gave his name into the intercom and
the electronically controlled gates swung open. The high