Free Walk on the Wild Side by Natalie Anderson

her. Just staring. Making her feel so self-conscious and so hot it was a wonder her skin wasn’t curling and crisping like bacon under a grill.
    â€˜What are you doing here?’ she asked before thinking.
    â€˜I’m deciding whether you’re real or whether this is jet lag causing a hallucination.’
    Jet lag? Had he only just got back from Canada?
    â€˜How are you going to find out?’ She could barely breathe.
    He smiled lazily and she blinked in the face of its brilliance. Oh, he was so smooth, wasn’t he? She couldn’t be felled again by just a look like that.
    She leaned forward—dangerously close. ‘I’m an illusion,’ she whispered. ‘Not real at all.’ He chuckled.
    â€˜How was your trip?’ She stepped back and busied her hands by going into the kitchen and getting cups from the shelf. ‘Did the training go OK?’
    â€˜Not as good as it could have.’ He followed her, leaning against the door frame.
    â€˜No?’
    His grimace said it all. ‘My knee is going to take a little longer than we first thought. I’m back for more physio. No point getting frustrated by being surrounded by snow and doing something stupid.’
    â€˜Oh.’ She’d thought he’d handled the stairs no problem and was moving as lithe as a panther. But it must still bother him on those death-defying jumps.
    â€˜What about you—you’re OK?’ He moved to where she was by the bench. Mind-blowingly, pheromone-dizzying close.
    She stared at the seam of his shirt and reminded herself to breathe again. She had to keep it light. Didn’t want him to know how much he affected her—that was just embarrassing. The guy was a pro—but in sport and sex. And she was just another in that long line. So she had to get them laughing again as if none of this had ever mattered.
    â€˜Actually, no,’ she said firmly. ‘Life’s not been the same since I last saw you.’
    He stilled. ‘It hasn’t?’
    â€˜No,’ she said sombrely. ‘Thanks to you I’m scarred for life.’ With a theatrical flourish, she pointed to her nose. ‘I got three new freckles.’
    â€˜Freckles,’ he said blankly. ‘You got freckles.’
    â€˜Three.’ She nodded. ‘From the sun.’
    He snorted and leaned back on the bench, his smile crocodile wide.
    She grinned back. ‘You obviously aren’t aware of how serious this is.’
    He laughed—too long, too infectiously. Then he suddenly sobered, half groaning and rubbing his chest with the heel of his hand. ‘Hell, for a moment there I thought you were going to tell me something far worse.’
    â€˜What could be worse?’ she asked mock-incredulously.
    â€˜That there might have been some long-term consequences from that day.’
    â€˜Freckles are long term,’ she said. ‘You can’t get rid of them. At all . Believe me, I’ve tried.’
    â€˜But kids have much more of an impact.’ He shook his head and laughed again. ‘I thought you were going to tell me you were pregnant.’
    Pregnant?
    Kelsi laughed, too—giggled like a silly schoolgirl.
    But as their amusement filled her ears her brain ticked over slowly. Her giggle went into cardiac arrest. ‘Kelsi?’
    She shook her head and turned away from him slightly as she tried to think harder. Pregnant. No. She’d had a period—hadn’t she?
    â€˜It’s been a month, Kelsi. Shouldn’t you know by now?’
    She should if she’d been paying attention to anything like that. But she’d been working even crazier hours than usual because of an account she’d won. Because she’d been trying to distract herself so much.
    So she really hadn’t been thinking about her cycle or anything. Hell, she hadn’t even had the time to dye her hair again, which was why she was going for the assortment of hats at the