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CHAPTER THREE
AARON TOOK AN involuntary step backward. Had he really just run into Julie Bradshaw? Her blue eyes stared up at him, and he was suddenly hit with images of her from his past. A past he wasn’t keen on revisiting. She was the absolute last person he’d expected to see. What was she doing here?
Aaron opened his mouth, but no words would come.
He coughed, trying to regain his equilibrium. He was never lost for words. And he was never caught unawares. It was his job to stay professional and calm at all times.
But goddammit, there was Julie, standing right in front of him. Looking just as sunny and sexy as she had when she was seventeen. Well, perhaps her face showed a few more fine lines, but the high cheekbones, aquiline nose, and pouting lips were the same. And still as alluring as ever. The only real difference was her hair. The long, blonde locks were gone, replaced by a modern, short style, with chunks of warm caramel highlights throughout. It was kind of sexy, and Aaron decided it suited her. A quick flick of his gaze showed well-worn jeans hugging her hips over a pair of dusty cowboy boots, with a white T-shirt to finish off her look. Not much different from what he’d last seen her wearing. Although those hips seemed a tad more luscious. She seemed to have blossomed into one helluva good-looking woman over the past decade. And why wouldn’t she? The only thing that seemed to be missing today was the ever-ready, buoyant smile Julie was so well-known for. It was missing, because she was now glowering at him.
“Julie,” he said, testing that his tone was even and controlled. “Nice to see you again. I wasn’t expecting to—”
“What the fuck, Aaron?”
Aaron tried to hide his shock at her vitriol. He supposed he deserved it.
“What are you doing here? Do you think you can just walk in here and pretend everything is all right? Greet me like some long-lost friend? Because that is not how this works.” She was practically spitting at him like a farm cat.
“No, not at all. But you need to understand. I had no idea—”
“You stroll in here, looking exactly the same as you always did…” The way her gaze flickered up and down his body as she spoke told him that perhaps she still liked how he looked, too. “…but you sure don’t act like the man I used to know. Or dress like you used to,” she added. “You have a hell of a lot of explaining to do, Aaron Powell.”
Goddammit, how was he supposed to explain himself when she kept cutting him off like that? “Look, Julie, I’m not the same person I was twelve years ago.” He held his hands up, palm outward. What else could he say? Neither of them was the same person they used to be. But he was pretty sure he’d changed a hell of a lot more than she had.
“I can see that,” she replied darkly.
If only she knew the truth behind those words. That day he’d last seen Julie—on his nineteenth birthday—had been the day his whole world had come tumbling down. Everything he thought he knew about himself had been thrown into doubt by his mother’s drunken words. It was better that he left. Julie wouldn’t have wanted him if she ever found out the secret that’d driven him away.
“You left without a word?” she said, accusation thick on her tongue.
He drew in a deep breath. “Are we really going to do this now?” It wasn’t the place. They were standing in a dark hallway, glaring at each other like wary jackals circling their kill. He was supposed to be meeting his client, Steve, not arguing with a long-lost lover over whether he should’ve said goodbye or not.
She speared him with her gaze. Normally, her eyes reminded him of a watercolor painting, all pastel and pale blue, but today they were definitely arctic; as cold as ice.
“Fine. Tell me what you’re doing here, then.”
He should ask her the very same thing. As far as he knew, Julie should still be living in Dalgety, down in New South Wales, with her mother and stepfather. That’d always been the plan, that she’d stay on and help Connie and Tony with the sheep farm. What the hell she was doing on this cattle station up in North Queensland, he had no idea.
His boss, Jake, had told him to hop on the first flight out from Brisbane up to Cairns, and then to charter a helicopter out to this Stormcloud Station. Aaron had been momentarily distracted by the sweet ride, a Bell 505, five-seater helicopter, bright-red in color, with two seats up front and three in the back. It was different than any helicopter Aaron had ever flown before, and on the trip over, he’d quizzed the pilot about the controls, and what it was like to fly for a charter company.
But as soon as they’d landed, Aaron had forced his mind off the chopper and back onto the job, the details of which were sketchy. Jake said Aaron would learn more when he got there, but it seemed the daughter of a wealthy landowner, Steve Clements, was being harassed by a stalker and she needed protection ASAP. There was no name given for the daughter. It was unusual protocol not to have the full details on a client before he went out on a job, but when Aaron questioned Jake, all he’d say was it’d been a request from an old friend, someone Jake had known from his time in America. A wealthy gentleman named Dean Williams, the uncle of the girl in question.
“I’m here on business,” he stated flatly.
“What sort of business?”
Should he elaborate? He didn’t know who or what she was in the scheme of things here. But it did seem as if she belonged. She certainly had an air of authority. Was she part of the staff? She was still staring at him with those arctic eyes.
“Shield Solutions sent me. I’m a protection agent.”
Her eyes widened as she processed his words. “You? You’re a bodyguard?” She took another step away, putting more space between them. “I don’t need a fucking bodyguard.” Julie’s face turned red, her lips thinning into an angry line.
Her outburst surprised him. But then, some of the puzzle pieces began to fall into place. He wasn’t sure how to make the connections, but it seemed she might be the woman he’d been sent up here to guard. Oh, hell no. His day was just getting better and better. He unclenched his hands and let them fall limp by his sides.
Then he drew in a deep breath, and said, “That’s good, because I’m a protection agent. Not a bodyguard.”
“Since when did you become a…protection agent?” She sneered the words. “I thought they were all military dropouts, with sniper skills and such. You were never in the army. Were you?” The last part was said with a hint of confusion.
“No, I wasn’t.” He kept his tone even, not letting her biting words get under her skin.
