Free Hide Your Heart: A New Zealand Small Town Romance (Sexy New Zealand Beach Romance Far North Book 1) by Tracey Alvarez

attraction to him.
    “Can I carry the plate?”
    She unclipped Drew’s safety belt. “Yes. But remember you promised to be a good boy and have a bath when we get home.”
    His nose wrinkled. “Oh, all right.”
    The rain splattered on their raincoats in relentless bullets as they hurried to the tent, Drew clutching the foil-covered plate to his chest. A soft glow illuminated the plastic windows, but Nate didn’t come out to greet them.
    “Nate?” she called.
    “In here.” Movement from inside.
    She unzipped the tent flap and shepherded Drew through. The conditions weren’t much better than the outside. Rivulets of water trickled across the floor and the air smelled dank with wet oilskin. Nate hunched on a deck chair in the corner, his sleeping bag tucked around him.
    Drew’s gumboots splashed tiny sprays as he walked. “We brought you dinner.”
    Nate reached out for the plate, a slight tremor in his hands. A seismic impact shifted in her heart. She wanted him to give up and return to the city a.s.a.p., but for goodness sake, the man was miserable.
    “Get your stuff together, and come back with us. You can’t stay here in these conditions.”
    Cool, heavy-lidded eyes met hers. “I’m fine.”
    “Tough guy, are you?”
    “I’ve been in worse places.”
    “I don’t doubt it. But if you get over your tough-guy ego, there’s a hot shower, hot food, and a dry futon in my workshop you can sleep on tonight.”
    “You can play snakes ‘n’ ladders with me,” said Drew.
    Hesitation as their gazes clashed again, then a glimmer of a smile emerged. “Food, warmth, and a game of snakes and ladders with my little mate?”
    Drew beamed at him.
    “Guess I’d be crazy to turn down an offer like that.”
    Yes. And she’d been crazy enough to suggest it.
     
    ***
     
    After a shower, a double serve of chili, and a solid beating by a ruthless four-year-old board game shark, Nate considered himself human again.
    He unrolled his sleeping bag on the futon couch and looked around the fluorescent-lit workshop with a sigh. His new accommodations were dry, un-cramped, and came with the luxury of indoor plumbing instead of the great outdoors. As an enthusiastic twenty-three-year-old who’d camped in central New Zealand’s icy temperatures to cover an annual motorbike rally, he’d had no problem sleeping rough. But eight years later? He was too old for that kind of shit.
    He flicked off the workshop lights, crawled into bed, and adjusted the laundry-scented pillow Lauren had thrust at him. He should’ve felt a sense of satisfaction, now that he had a warm place to sleep. Why, then, did he feel as if he wanted something more?
    Nate woke with a start. Three o’clock in the morning , the glowing digits of his watch informed him. He stumbled from the couch to the bathroom at the end of the workshop. God, he felt drugged. He hadn’t slept so well in a week. Yawning, he glanced out the tiny window as he washed his hands.
    Lauren’s lights were on.
    Indecision glued his bare feet to the concrete. What if she was sick and too proud to call him for help? What if nightmares had woken Drew? What if he just admitted he needed to see her again, even though he’d only said goodnight six hours ago?
    Leave them alone. Leave her alone .
    He snarled at his reflection in the bathroom mirror then stalked back into the workshop, promptly stubbing his toe on the futon’s corner. Swearing, he fumbled for his flashlight and switched it on to illuminate a crimson splatter-trail on her rug. Perfect . His big toenail had partially lifted from its bed, and blood trickled out. Nate tugged on jeans and a shirt and headed out of the workshop.
    Java rose above him at the top of the deck stairs—a devil-black shape amongst charcoal shadows.
    Nate climbed the steps. “Don’t even think about it, mutt. I’m mad enough to bite you first.”
    The dog sneezed, shook himself until his collar rattled then sauntered to his bed by the back door.
    Nate