Wanderlust by Natalie K. Martin Read Free Book Online Page A

life without getting distracted by someone else’s.
    He wasn’t a bad person, was he? He’d been brought up well and he was a sensitive guy at heart but after his accident, he just hadn’t cared anymore. It could’ve been a lot worse, he knew that. He could’ve ended up disabled, or even dead, but losing the ability to climb completely had filled him with rage and the sharp feeling of inadequacy. It had lessened as soon as he’d gone through the security gate at the airport and he didn’t want to look back.
    He frowned as he swilled some water around his empty cup before putting it in the dishwasher. He needed to banish these thoughts from his head and look forward to Croatia but, instead of being filled with the usual anticipation of arriving at a new destination and meeting up with old friends, all he felt was a gnawing sense of apprehension. Maybe Colinas Verde had grabbed more of a hold on him than he thought.
    Alex stretched his arms over his head. He’d escaped dealing with his inner demons in Penny’s yoga class that morning, but it was hitting him with full force now and it didn’t help that his body was aching with the missed opportunity to stretch and realign itself. He’d go tomorrow.
    He walked to his room, trying to psyche himself up for work. His elbow still ached and he had to paint the hut. It was going to be a long day.
    Just as he opened the door to his bedroom, Selina emerged from hers, wrapped in a towel. She smiled at him again as she walked past him to the bathroom and, before he even realised what he was doing, he stopped and turned to look at her.
    ‘Hey. You any good with a paintbrush?’
     
    It turned out she was great with a paintbrush, if a little slow. He’d covered almost twice as much as she had, but the last minute decision to ask Selina to help had turned out to the right thing to do. Philipe was in bed with a fever and he’d have been on his own otherwise. Alex looked at her as she crouched down, jabbing the paintbrush into the small grooves in the wood to make sure the coverage was even.
    ‘You’re very thorough,’ he said as she went back over a patch she’d only just covered.
    She looked up at him before dipping her brush back into the pot. ‘Well, if I’m going to do something, I like to do it properly.’
    ‘And slowly, too.’ He grinned to show that he was just teasing her and even though she looked at the floor, he saw the grin on her face too.
    ‘I never promised I’d be quick.’
    ‘Thankfully, otherwise I’d be very disappointed,’ he replied, bending down to add more paint to his brush.
    ‘Yes, well.’ She looked at him. ‘We can’t all be perfect.’
    She turned back to the wall and he fought to hide his smile. Had she just called him perfect? He was sure she had and, despite the blazing sun beaming down on them, it warmed him from the inside out.
    He was enjoying working with Selina and although this situation - slipping into what seemed like the beginning of an easy friendship with a pretty girl - was nothing new, the way he was dealing with it was. Usually, he’d be looking for signs that things could go further but this time, it was different. He was determined to stick to his promise and not even allow himself to think about any girl as anything more than a friend. It wasn’t easy with Selina, not now that she was being so nice to him but still, he had no desire to even consider straying from his promise.
    It was hard to change overnight, but this time, he was determined not to screw it up.
     

Chapter Six
     
    Selina put her empty plate on the ground and brushed away the crumbs from her legs. It had been a beautiful evening. The fire had been lit in the steel bowl in the centre of the clearing and around them, people sat huddled in conversation while someone strummed on a guitar. The small solar powered torches stuck into the ground glowed as they lit the way back to each of the bungalows and it felt like, for the first time, she’d been