Page 101 of The Mechanics of Lust

“Or maybe,didn’tsay?” Gil was on a roll. “Because there’s always that, right?”

And a pipe bomb joined the grenade.

I held my hand out and snapped my fingers at Holden. “Hand them over.” It came out almost a growl.

Holden looked thoroughly confused. “Handwhatover?”

“Here.” Gil held out the rental car keys for me to take. “He gave them to me. And good luck.”

I caught the last three words as I was bolting out the door, along with Holden’s aggrieved, “Will someone please tell me what the fuck that was all about?”

CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX

Luke

The weatheron the flight back to Oakwood was stunning, because of course it bloody was. The cloud had burned off to leave bright, clear skies and picture-postcard views of the Southern Alps in all their glory. The mountains fanned west toward the Tasman Sea like a jagged, snow-capped carpet with not a wisp of cloud or mountain fog to be seen. From what I’d been told, that’s how it rolled in early autumn in the Mackenzie. One day you were caught in freezing fog or the snowstorm from hell, the next could find you stripping off your shirt to wipe the sweat from your brow.

I touched my skids down outside the Wild Run hangar around five thirty, and Gary and Tommy rushed to meet me. Gary clasped me in a fierce hug and then manhandled me into his office where I was barraged with questions that all of Oakwood was apparently waiting on the answers to. Meals were already being organised for delivery out to the station, and the other station owners were organising a work rotation to help out during muster.

Not that Gary or Tommy were about to feed any information to the well-meaning gossip hounds. The two men were tighter than clams in that way, something I was grateful for. Still, I found the town’s rallying behind the family kind of heart-warming. The upside of small-town life, I guessed.

Once I’d answered everything to Gary and Tommy’s satisfaction, Gary sent me home, insisting that he and Tommy were quite capable of cleaning the chopper and putting it to bed. I wasn’t about to say no, considering I was flying back to Wellington the next afternoon, which meant another trip to Christchurch airport.

It was almost nightfall by the time I opened the front door of the bungalow and threw my bag on the floor. Cleaning that sucker out could wait another day, but if I’d had to sit in my own stink any longer, I might’ve thrown up.

I got a fire going, not that it was really cold enough to need one, but I still felt chilled to the bone and craved the cosiness. Then I made a beeline for the shower and stood under the waterfall of blisteringly hot water until my skin wrinkled and the extractor fan threw in the towel, filling the bathroom with steam. I reached outside the shower and pushed open a window. Then I dialled back the water temperature and sank onto the tiled floor to let exhaustion do its thing.

The adrenaline crash had been a long day in the making, seemingly prepared to wait until I was in a safe place to tear down my defences and have its way with me. Top of the list, not the struggle up the mountain, or the freezing temperatures, or Paddy Lane’s stroke, or the hairy flying conditions. No, it was Zach’s summary to Gil and Holden of our ‘relationship.’

There really wasn’t much to tell. Besides, it’s finished.

The latter was true, of course, but the former just plain hurt. Holden and Gil already knew about us, so even though Zach had apologised and partly taken it back, it was a reversal that was obviously meant only for my ears. And that spoke volumes. He wasn’t reconsidering. I’d been an idiot... again. I’d let hope creep back in. I’d landed in Christchurch almost positive Zach was beginning to see me in a different light—maybe even rethinking his decision.

And that kiss up on the mountain? I swallowed hard at the memory. To have Zach’s lips back on mine had meant every fucking thing. And it had been no mere polite thank-you peck on the lips. He’d kissed me back, hard. Caught up in the moment of finding Jules and his father, sure, but then he’d let me hold him that night as well, curled up in my arms to keep warm. That had to mean something, right?

Or was I grasping at straws because I wanted it so badly, and seeing him again after a week of radio silence had only made that ache a hundred times worse? I sat under the spray of water and counted all the ways I’d lost my freaking mind over this guy. Not since Gil had I felt anything close to this. And yeah, that one might not have had the fairy-tale ending but that wasn’t because the love wasn’t there. We just didn’t look after it.

All that bullshit about love being all you needed was exactly that—bullshit. I’d learned the hard way that falling in love only gave you the raw ingredients. If you let them go stale, didn’t mix them the right way, used the wrong proportions, cooked them at the wrong temperature, set the timer wrong, or any of a hundred other ways you could fuck up the process, love could slip through your fingers and fade into a pale shadow of what it might have been.

You had to pay attention. You had to watch and nurture each other. You had to keep things fresh, keep laughing, keep having fun. All the things I was going to do my best not to lose sight of ever again. All the things I’d hoped to have a chance to do with Zach.

I spun the green band on my wrist, thought of that stubborn look Callie got on her face when she was about to dig her toes in, and steeled my heart.

Fuck it.

I wasn’t going to give up.

Zach was the man I wanted in my life, and I was damn well going to fight for the chance to be with him.

He may not see it as clearly as I did, but that didn’t mean I was wrong to keep trying.

I could be a patient motherfucker if I wanted to be, and I believed in my heart that Zach wanted me too, if he would let himself believe in it. We may have started out as fireworks between the sheets, but we’d never beenonlythat. We worked together, and somehow, I’d find a way to make him see that as well.

To see our potential.

To want more from me too.

If not, at least I’d know I gave it everything.

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