by Joan Kilby
“Wait a minute. No,” Lexie said, alarmed. “You’ll get back together. You have to. You can’t throw away forty years of marriage.”
“I don’t want to,” Hetty said. “But right now, I can’t live at home.”
Lexie gave her mum another hug. “Stay here as long as you want. You could help me look for my receipts.”
She didn’t want to mention she was low on groceries or that she had a cash flow problem. With luck she would sell a painting this week. The seascapes she did were bread and butter between the odd commission she got for portraits.
“I’ll pay rent, of course,” Hetty said, somehow reading her mind.
“Don’t even think about it,” Lexie said. “But I’d love you to show me some of the new yoga techniques you learned at the retreat.”
“Gladly.” Hetty gave her a watery smile.
Lexie released her mother. She picked up the bundle of clothes in the hallway and carried them to the front door. First thing tomorrow she would donate them to the thrift shop.
She was already beginning to feel lighter. It was good to start afresh. With a clearer mind she might find the key to finishing Sienna’s portrait.
But as she walked toward the spare room her footsteps slowed.
Lexie reached the box of clothes and removed the pink dress. She took it to her bedroom and hung it at the back of her closet.
CHAPTER THREE
“WHAT THE HELL’S going on, Murph?” Rafe said as he pulled up in front of Lexie’s house the next morning. Bulging plastic garbage bags were piled along the path. Boxes of odds and ends were stacked behind her car. The front door was propped open. Was she turning the house inside out in her search for the envelopes?
He parked at the curb and unloaded his briefcase and a couple bags of groceries. Murphy, his black-and-white mutt, scampered at his heel, sniffing boxes, relieving himself on the gardenia bush, barking at the brown cat that hissed at him before darting into the shrubbery.
Rafe stopped. The skeleton clock was in one of the boxes clearly destined for rubbish. He tucked it under his arm and knocked on the open door. Soft music was playing and vanilla incense drifted through the house. “Lexie?”
“Come in.” Her voice sounded constricted.
Rafe slipped off his shoes and walked through the hall, turning left into the living room. The coffee table and armchair had been pushed back so Lexie and her mother had space for yoga. Hetty was in a deep lunge, arms outstretched. Lexie was standing on one leg, doubled over and touching the floor. Her other long and shapely leg straight up in the air, toe pointed. Her hair hung in a curtain around her head.
It was rude to stare but he couldn’t help it. Lexie’s aqua blue tank top and low-slung cropped pants fit her like a second skin, molding to every slender curve. Man, she could bend.
Cool it, Ellersley. Independent state of mind, remember?
Positioning his briefcase in front of him, he began to recite the Taxation Administration Act of 1953 in his head. Murphy settled onto his haunches at Rafe’s feet.
Lexie lowered her leg with exquisite control and straightened, flipping her hair back. “Rafe, I found the envelopes!”
“Excellent.” His name on her lips, her excitement… Pursuant to Schedule A, Section D, the party of the first part shall pay a portion of their income to the Commonwealth of Australia, calculated for the financial period from the first day of July to the thirtieth day of June…
Then, before he could ask where the envelopes were, Lexie noticed Murphy. “Oh, my God, a stray followed you in. Quick, get him out before he goes after Yin and Yang.” She came at him, making shooing motions. “Go on, bad doggy, out!”
Murphy started licking her hands. She snatched her hands away.
“This is Murphy,” Rafe said. “Sorry, I should have asked first if I could bring him here. I couldn’t leave him home alone for days on end. He’s a good boy. He likes cats.”
Likes to annoy them. The truth was, Rafe had forgotten all about Lexie’s Burmese cats.
“All right,” Lexie said reluctantly. “But if they get stressed, he’ll have to stay in the backyard.” She noticed the grocery bags. “What’s this?”
“I thought I’d pick up a few things since I’ll be around a lot this week. You know how crabby I get when I’m hungry.” His conscience wouldn’t allow him to go out to eat knowing she was lunching on two-minute noodles.
Hetty straightened out of her yoga pose. “Hello,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Hetty. I arrived yesterday just as you were leaving.”
“Pleased to meet you officially,” he said, shaking hands.
Lexie peeked inside the grocery bags at the meat, cheese, eggs, fruit and vegetables he’d bought. She gazed at him, her eyes so dazzling they were hard to look at and impossible to turn away from. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“So,” he said, rubbing his hands together like some cartoon character because otherwise he’d reach out and touch her or do something equally inappropriate. “Show me to the envelopes.”
“Ta-da!” She gestured grandly to the dining table.
Rafe’s heart plummeted to the soles of his croc skins.
Holy shit.
Manila envelopes full to bursting were stacked four high and five or six wide. There must be dozens of them. As he looked, a precariously balanced envelope slid off the top of the pile and fell on the floor.
“I’ll put away the groceries.” Hetty picked up the bags and carried them to the kitchen.
“Thanks, Mum,” Lexie said.
Rafe walked over to the table and picked up one of the bulging envelopes. “Where did you find them?”
“In the garden shed,” she said excitedly. “I remembered where they were in the middle of the night. You know how sometimes you wake up and the answer to something that’s been puzzling you is right there, clear as a bell? I woke up with a picture in my mind of me shoving them on the potting table.”
The woman was certifiable.
And she was standing too close. Her perfume combined with the scent of her warm skin was stirring his hormones. Occasionally he was attracted to women he audited, but until Lexie they’d always been easy to resist. All he could think of right now was wanting to grab her and kiss her breathless.
He’d never encountered anyone like her—sexy and exasperating in almost equal measures. “Why would you put them in the garden shed?”
“They were driving me nuts. I had to paint.” Her gaze seemed to get stuck on the open neck of his shirt. “Out of sight, out of mind.”
“What if you needed to garden?” And didn’t that just make him picture her kneeling in the garden bed, her ass in the air?
“It was the middle of the summer.” She gathered her hair in a bunch and let it fall down her back. He followed the line of her upraised arms with his eyes. “The, um, grass doesn’t even need mowing. Because…it doesn’t get enough water. To grow.”
“That’s…logical.”
With difficulty, Rafe dragged his eyes back to the envelope. Opening it, he pulled out a handful of loose pieces of paper. “You must spend a lot on art supplies.”
“They’re not all from buying art supplies. I’m never sure what’s allowable and what isn’t, so just to be on the safe side, I keep every receipt I get.”
“O-kay. Every receipt?” he echoed faintly, feeling a sharp twinge in his stomach. He put the envelope down and opened his briefcase. He found that if he avoided looking at her, it was easier to concentrate.
“I’ll go through them with you,” Lexie said. “But first, I’ve got to take a load of stuff to the thrift store. I’ve got to declutter. I can’t think.”
“I’ll help,” Hetty volunteered, returning from the kitchen.
“Thanks, Mum.” Lexie abandoned the receipts, grabbed her purse from the table and headed for the front door. She yelled over her shoulder, “I’ll be back.”
Hetty took a seat at the table and gazed expectantly at Rafe. “What would you like
me to do?”
Rafe scanned the slips of paper in his hand and shook his head. Lexie had put receipts from different years in the same envelope. “You could start sorting these by year.”
Murphy was doing the rounds of the living room, sniffing at every chair. Yin watched him through slitted green eyes from the arm of the couch. “Murphy, here.” The dog trotted over and lay at his feet under the table.
Hetty started separating the receipts into piles. “I don’t mind telling you the family has been worried about Lexie’s finances. Ever since she quit teaching to paint full-time she’s had trouble making ends meet. But she refuses to accept help. She says she made the decision to be an artist, and she’s willing to live with the consequences. It’s nice of you to come to her house and do this for her.”
“It’s my job.” He wondered if he should mention that Lexie would likely cop a fine. He felt bad about that—
Not his problem. Feeling sorry for the taxpayer was how he’d gotten into trouble over his last audit.
He heard Lexie return for another box. A moment later he heard her car start.
Rafe called up the spreadsheet onto the screen. He pulled a calculator out of his briefcase and began entering numbers. When he’d done all he could, he reached for an envelope and began sorting. There were receipts for the hairdresser (not deductible), art gallery entry (deductible), a car battery (debatable)—
“Do you live locally?” Hetty asked.
“Sassafras, up in the Dandenongs. But I’m booked into a bed and breakfast just down the road.”
“Myrna Bailey’s, right?” She waited for him to nod then went on, “Do you have family?”
Rafe suppressed a sigh. What was it about middle-aged women that they had to know everything about a person? That they couldn’t sit at the same table without making conversation. “My parents live in Western Victoria, in Horsham. I have a sister in Brisbane.”
“Do your parents farm?”
It was a natural enough question given the location but he hated answering it. His parents, Darryl and Ellen, had moved to the country years ago, after Darryl’s accident, because it was cheaper than the city. Rafe always wanted to explain that although his father was in a wheelchair, there’d been a time when he’d had bigger dreams.
“No, my father has a home-based business repairing clocks and watches.” He should go see them. It had been months since he’d last been out there.
Rafe continued sifting through Lexie’s receipts. He came across an application form for an artist’s society. He noted down the amount of annual dues and saw she’d filled in her birth date.
Before he could censor himself, he blurted, “Is Lexie really thirty-eight years old?”
“Yes,” Hetty said. “It was her birthday last month.”
Twelve years older than him. He’d figured she was older but not by that much.
“She looks a lot younger.”
“It’s the yoga and the meditation,” Hetty said. “Plus she has a naturally serene disposition. Nothing bothers her.”
“The portrait she’s painting is bothering her.”
“Well, yes,” Hetty conceded.
Rafe sat back in his chair, still staring at the year Lexie was born. She could have easily passed for thirty. If that was the result of meditation and yoga maybe he ought to take it up. Or not.
Twelve years.
He added the art society annual dues to the column. Afternoon sun shone through the crystals hanging from the window frame, making rainbows on his page of numbers. There seemed to be crystals everywhere in the house. He’d noticed them in the kitchen, too. From below the table, Murphy snored.
“Do you have a wife or girlfriend?” Hetty asked.
Rafe stifled another sigh. “Never married. No girlfriend at present.”
“You’re young yet,” she said comfortably. “There’s plenty of time to marry and have children.”
The other thing about middle-aged women was, they wanted to marry a guy off and tie him down with kids before he’d had a chance to enjoy life. What was up with that?
He stabbed at the keypad on his calculator. “How are you doing with the sorting?”
“Don’t you like kids?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said, you have plenty of time to marry and have kids,” Hetty recapped patiently, as she dealt out receipts like playing cards at a bridge game. “You didn’t reply. So then I asked, don’t you like children?”
How did she get child-hater from silence? There’d been nothing to say in response to her statement so he hadn’t bothered with meaningless chatter. “Kids are fine, I guess. As long as they’re other people’s.”
Tamsin, his ex-girlfriend, had made him gun-shy. They’d been together nearly a year when she’d gotten clucky. Then he’d discovered she’d “accidentally” forgotten to take her birth control pills and the huge fight that ensued had killed their relationship. Fortunately, she hadn’t got pregnant.
Feeling Hetty’s gaze on him, he could sense the questions forming in her mind. “I’ve got plans, okay? I’m not ready to get married or have children. Maybe in ten years I’ll think about it. But first I want to start my own fishing charter business.”
“That’s interesting,” she said, leaning forward, chin on her palm. “When are you going to do that?”
“Next year, if all goes well.” Then he pointedly began entering numbers into his calculator. He’d had enough soul baring for one day. And he’d jeopardize his job if he didn’t do this audit properly.
Hetty went back to sorting receipts. The only sound was the clicking of the keys as Rafe entered data.
After a few minutes her hands stilled. Out of the blue she said, “I’ve lost touch with my husband.” She stared at the receipts in her hand.
Fresh pain stabbed his stomach. Now she expected him to ask her questions. News flash! He wasn’t a woman. Hell. Why did she have to look so unhappy? “What happened?” he asked heavily.
“We grew apart when we weren’t looking,” she said, launching into what was sure to be a long-winded explanation. “We’d been up and down for six months or more, ever since we retired. Then I went away to Queensland for a yoga retreat. He didn’t like that. Now that I’m back, well, he doesn’t seem to need me anymore.”
She paused, apparently waiting for another response.
“Has he said he doesn’t need you?” Rafe asked gruffly. “Sometimes women read stuff into things that guys don’t mean.”
“No, but—”
“Did he tell you to leave?”
“I told you, I left him. I share the blame, I do.” She waved a veined hand weighted with silver rings. “But I’m ready to try again. Only he has a whole new life and there doesn’t seem to be any place in it for me.” Her large gray eyes swam with tears. “He doesn’t care if I’m here or not. He won’t talk to me, barely looks at me. Forty years of marriage and it’s over. I’m pretty sure there’s another woman. I don’t know what to do.”
Rafe just nodded. Why was she confiding in him? He was no marriage counselor.
“If I was your husband,” he improvised, hoping that a solution would shut her up. “I’d want you to prove you would never go away again before I took you back.”
Hetty blinked away moisture. “How can I do that?”
“By going home and staying put. By not running off to your daughter’s house. It takes time to win back trust.”
Hetty stared. “For a young man you’re very wise.”
She started sorting again. After ten minutes she put down the receipts. “He’s got to meet me halfway. Talk to me, for a start. Listen to how I feel.”
Rafe grunted. His calculator clicked steadily.
Hetty’s voice flowed on.
THE HOUSE WAS QUIET when Lexie entered an hour later. Odd. Her mother liked to chat. She’d thought Hetty would be talking Rafe’s ear off. Peering into the living room, she could see that Rafe was alone, his back to her, bent over the table. His comput
er sat idle.
She dropped her purse on the hall table and kicked off her shoes. “I’m back. Where’s Mum?”
He straightened and glanced over his shoulder, brushing a thick strand of black hair out of his eyes. “No idea. She said something but I wasn’t listening. I think she left.”
He was working on the skeleton clock. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up over forearms smattered with dark hair. His hands were well shaped, his long fingers delicately manipulating the inner workings with a tiny screwdriver and tweezers.
She sank into the chair next to him.
“I replaced a spring, tightened a few things.” He sat back. From the compartment at the bottom of the base he took the small key and inserted it into the keyhole. He turned it a few times and listened.
The clock started to tick.
Rafe grunted with satisfaction and glanced sideways at her.
Lexie’s eyes blurred. The clock wasn’t going to help her finish her portrait or do her taxes but it felt like the first thing that had gone right in days. Maybe weeks. “You did it.”
As if he’d fixed her life.
Without stopping to think she leaned over, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him.
CHAPTER FOUR
KISSING HIM was like touching her lips to a live electrical wire. A current flowed through her, lifting her off her chair and onto her feet. Rafe surged upward, too, his hands framing her face as he pressed his mouth to hers in a long breathless kiss. She slid her arms around his neck. He gathered her close, pressing hot kisses to her cheeks, her nose, her neck. Then his mouth found hers again and his tongue plunged inside, flooding her with heat and sensation…
Her hands slid down his shirtfront, pushing against his chest. “Stop,” she gasped.
Instantly, he released her, breathing hard, eyes wild. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Aghast, Lexie fled down the hall to her bedroom. She slammed the door shut and paced between the end of the bed and the closet. Rafe was a government tax accountant here to audit her, not to…to…