The Protea Boys

by Téa Cooper

  Shit.

  She’d let her guard down; she’d banned those thoughts from sneaking up on her. This was meant to be a new beginning, and the sooner she put the past behind her, the better. Kicking off the ballet pumps, she wrenched the blouse over her head and then stripped off the capri pants and replaced them with the familiar security of a T-shirt and cargos.

  The scrabbling of the tires on the driveway announced the return of the truck, and Georgie pulled a face in the mirror and left it to its own reflections and then with a determined stride, set off to the shed. By the time she arrived, the truck was parked and the tools all neatly stacked inside the shed.

  “Afternoon, guys,” she called, aiming for a tone sitting somewhere between efficient and casual. “How did you go?”

  Matt punched Jim on the shoulder before sauntering over to her.

  “Great. No problems,” he said, wiping his forehead with a filthy hand. “Looking forward to a beer though. It’s been a hot day.”

  Georgie smiled up at him. She could see the tatt on his shoulder; it disappeared under his blue singlet. She idly wondered how long it would take Hillary to find out what it was. His tall, dark looks might appeal to her friend, but he left her cold, despite his handsome face and an attitude oozing sex appeal sufficient to render a wall. “So the truck went okay? No problems with any of the gear?”

  “Nope. It’s all fine, and we finished everything at Brown’s place. They seemed pretty pleased. Said they’d give you a ring in about a month to tee up another visit.”

  “Excellent. And the other guys—they’re all okay?”

  “Yep. Fine.” Matt kicked the dirt with his boots, keen to call it a day.

  “See you tomorrow morning then.”

  He nodded at her and walked over to the red Ute, jiggling his keys at Gap and Jim.

  “See you tomorrow, Georgie.” Their chorus bounced off the corrugated shed wall.

  “Next stop the Inn,” Matt yelled. “You coming, Tom?”

  Tom’s tousled head appeared from the other side of the truck. “I’ll see you down there. Couple things I’ve got to sort out. I’ll catch you.”

  Georgie stood very still, her gaze fixed on the receding Ute, but every bone in her body shrieked awareness. Tom locked the truck and faced her. She tried to call good-bye and walk back up to the house, but somehow her mouth and feet refused to obey her instructions.

  “Georgina.”

  She looked up. He walked toward her with his slow, easy stride.

  Perfectly comfortable in his own skin.

  The expression flitted through her mind while she studied his easy grace. The muscles on the tops of his arms were rounded and smooth, highlighted by his navy blue singlet, his skin still shiny with sweat. A streak of oil ran across one cheek, and his dark hair was separated as though he had run gel through it. The tang of hard work, oil, and mown grass filled the space between them.

  “Hi.” She ran her tongue over her lips, searching for more words.

  Tom reached out his hand. Dirt surrounded his fingernails; his skin was almost black and covered in tiny flecks of green grass. Slowly she lifted her hand to him. The tents from her dreams billowed in a moonlit, balmy breeze under the waving acacia trees.

  A dry, scrunching sound made her jump, and a frown creased her forehead. She stared down at the piece of paper Tom held in front of her.

  “This is a copy of the invoice for the Brown’s work,” he said, a lopsided smile twisting the corner of his mouth. He had another smear of oil just to the right of his lips.

  It took all of her concentration and every bit of her energy to drag her gaze away from his mouth. And then the telltale blush swept across her cheeks.

  Damn him.

  Georgie swallowed, the sound reverberating in her eardrums, and snatched the piece of paper from his hand. She licked her lips again, then eased the words through her very dry mouth. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow. Seven thirty sharp. Have a good evening, Georgina.”

  “Georgie,” she muttered.

  “Georgie.” Tom threw her an audacious wink before turning on his heel and walking to his shiny black four-wheel drive parked in the shade of the shed.

  For a moment or two, she stood rooted to the spot, her mouth slightly open, the afternoon air warm as she sucked it into her dehydrated lungs. Waiting until his vehicle skidded down the drive, she kicked the corner fence post, hard, very hard. The vibrations ran up her leg, making her gasp when a shaft of pain ricocheted up her calf muscle.

  Goddamn the man.

  Chapter Ten

  Georgie tried to get to sleep early, but after an hour of tossing and turning, she threw back the twisted sheets and gave up. Her clammy skin and erratic heartbeat made it impossible. She wandered into the bathroom and pulled her hair back from her face, staring at her eyes, which glinted back with a feverish anxiety. Taking out a small brown glass bottle from the cabinet, she rotated it in her hands, reading the prescription label. After a moment’s hesitation, she pushed it back on the shelf and closed the door with a determined shove, wishing she could shut the door on her memories as easily.

  She was such a fool. A naïve, stupid fool about to make the same mistakes again. Something somewhere had to be programmed incorrectly in her brain.

  Dale had been preying on her mind all day, and now she was fixated on Tom Morgan. Just because she was starting a new business didn’t mean that it would go the same way as the last one. She had to look at the whole episode more objectively. Perhaps that was the key to it all. She cradled her head in her hands, massaging her skull. There wasn’t any doubt she’d been a fool before, but this time she would play it differently. She would keep control, and she wouldn’t be swayed by any man. Not like she had been with Dale. He had an agenda, and she should have seen the writing on the wall long before she did. This time she would be prepared. She shook her hair back. It wouldn’t happen again.

  She had a new life now and a new business, and they didn’t include pills, just hard work, determination, and no romantic fantasies. She dragged her laptop into bed with her, planning to spend the next few hours reprogramming her life.

  ***

  By the time the morning light crossed the ridge, it became obvious to her: no matter how many times she looked at the numbers, they simply didn’t add up, and the minus sign loomed across the screen. The crystal Tiffany star her father had given her, engraved with the words We create our own future, stared down at her.

  I’m trying.

  She would have to try a little bit harder, but she was determined to make the farm pay its own way. There was no way she was going to hit the money from the sale of her PR business. Pushing her disheveled hair from her face, she sat up straight, pulled her shoulders back, and studied the spreadsheet again. Her choices were obvious. Either she sold or she expanded. Since selling wasn’t an option she wanted to contemplate, it would have to be expansion. The perils of primary production. Her lips twisted in a wry smile. What had Hillary said? Primary production sucks. It sure did, but she valued her privacy too much to contemplate a B&B, and the property had to make money if she intended to live there. She had no idea how her parents had expected to make it work, their halcyon dream, and they hadn’t even lived long enough to fulfill their retirement plans.

  Heaving a sigh, she rested her cheek in her palm and gazed out over the rows of protea bushes. What she needed was some fresh air, and there were flowers to be picked and bushes waiting for a decent prune. Georgie levered herself up, pulled on the pink Protea Boys cap, and headed into the sunshine.

  The shed looked positively cavernous without the truck, but far more organized. Running her hands along the shelves of neatly stacked buckets, she came to the end of the bench, stood back, and grinned.

  Excellent!

  Her tools hung in neat rows, and all the secateurs had their own space on a new white peg-board. She stretched up and pulled down the long-armed shears, then grabbed a pair of gloves while
she searched around for the ladder. Failing to find it, she ambled into the vegetable garden and grabbed hold of an old wooden one. It had seen better days, but it would do. She peeled the remains of some old runner beans from it, realizing the new one had to be on the truck with the boys.

  Whistling quietly, she dragged the ladder over to the first of the bushes and wedged it firmly against the sturdy trunk of the protea bush and climbed up. With her knees braced against the outside struts, she reached out and clipped the first branch. It fell easily to the ground, and she moved to the next. Hearing a satisfactory clatter as it hit the ground, she stretched up, extending the arms of the shears, and reached for the final branch. Her back arched with the weight of the shears, and she paused as the ladder settled into the soil. Realigning her feet, she leaned forward and up, pulling the handles of the shears together with as much force as she could muster.

  The vibration and the sound of cracking heralded the first warning. “Oh no.” The rung of the ladder creaked, and Georgie’s heart missed a beat as her foot slid down a rung. “Bugger.” She braced herself uselessly against the rotting wood, anticipating the crash.

  ***

  Tom stood quietly, enjoying the easy grace of her limbs as she stretched up into the top of the bush, the muscles in her back visible through her thin shirt when she pulled her body upward. Her hair beneath the cap had fallen loose and was hanging down over her shoulders, the sun highlighting the dappled streaks of color. He swallowed the thick knot filling his throat. She was, without a doubt, the most unselfconscious, naturally beautiful woman he had ever set eyes on—but she was falling.

  In one fluid movement, Tom reached her and gently spread his hands, encompassing her waist. “I’ve got you now, one step at a time. Take it easy.” A rapidly beating pulse below her rib cage thrummed beneath his fingers, and her soft, warm body trembled slightly; only a thin layer of cotton separated his fingers from her skin. She slowly stretched one leg down toward the next rung, testing it with her weight. He absorbed the heady scent of her sun-warmed skin, mixed with the fragrance of flowers. An overpowering urge to simply lift her down into his arms, pull her close, and cradle her against him swamped him.

  The raucous whistling and banging on the corrugated iron of the shed announced his enthusiastic audience and made him change his mind, but in that instant of distraction, Tom’s plans crumbled. Georgie fell backward, breaking the last two rungs, and twisted, collapsing against him. Her hands rested close to his heart, and her face pressed deep against his chest. He could see the button on the top of the ridiculous pink cap and feel her breath catching and the slight shiver of her body.

  Tom planted his feet firmly in the dirt and spread his hands around her waist, steadying himself against her slight weight, and a protective surge of emotion swept through him. Wolf whistles and catcalls filled the air. Blood roared in his ears, and he wanted to go and belt the living daylights out of the fools in the shed, but he didn’t want Georgie to move. In fact he prayed she wouldn’t move, would stay there, forever close to him where he could make sure she was safe and not throwing her accident-prone body all over the place. It was ridiculous, totally crazy. Tom searched his memory for some key as to how he should behave, but failed. Finally he dropped his hands and stepped away from her, ignoring the taunt of disappointment that erupted from the vicinity of the shed.

  “Are you okay?”

  A timid smile crept across Georgie’s face, wrinkling her nose and making the flurry of tiny freckles dance. She pulled the pink cap off her tousled hair and shook her head. He imagined bending forward and kissing her right on the end of her upturned nose.

  “I’m fine. It was just a stupid mistake. I shouldn’t have used the old ladder, but the new one was on the truck.”

  The depth of his reaction surprised him. He was responsible for her near-accident. She could have fallen and hit her head or hurt her back. The horror hit him deep in his gut, and unable to control himself, he let fly. “You shouldn’t have been up the ladder. Don’t do it again. Next time get someone who knows what they are doing.”

  Georgie’s head came up with a snap, her eyes flashing amethyst danger signals. “I am quite capable, thank you, of deciding what I’ll do and how and when I’ll do it. You forget I am running this business.” She stepped away from him like a scalded cat, leaving a cold rush of air filling the space that a moment ago had been so warm. “Thank you for your assistance,” she said, brushing her hands on the side of her cargo pants, then spun on her heel and stalked back up the path.

  She was about as prickly as an echidna and impossible to get near because of all those tortuous spines. What was a man supposed to do?

  “Bloody ladder,” he swore quietly to himself, pulling the remains of the rickety frame down from the bush and heaving it effortlessly over his shoulder. “Get back to work. The bush cutters need cleaning,” Tom shouted over his shoulder, taking his frustration out on Matt and Jim. Intent on keeping the ladder out of sight and away from Georgie until he’d repaired it and tested all the rungs, he took it around to the back of the shed.

  Chapter Eleven

  Determined to stay away from temptation, Georgie adopted a new timetable. She worked outside in the mornings after the truck had left and in the office in the heat of the afternoons. If she timed it right, she’d have as little to do with Tom as possible. Being close to him was too much of a temptation and besides, the control freak made her angry, damned angry, with his overprotective attitude and patronizing comments.

  Every afternoon the rumble on the gravel announced the truck returning, the banging doors and calls signaling the end of their working day. Every afternoon Georgie counted the cars leaving before she left her office. It wasn’t as though she wanted Tom completely out of her life; she just needed some space. The Protea Boys were in great demand, and between the extra money and the extra labor, the farm was beginning to look up. She might even break even next month.

  With the final pile of invoices sorted and her desk less like a battle zone, Georgie decided to call it quits. She pushed back her chair, wandered over to the window, and stared out across the paddock to the shed. Tom’s tall, lean frame was silhouetted against the afternoon sun. If she leaned back against the window frame, she could watch him unobserved. He had a stillness about him she found intriguing, and joke as she would about his body, there was more to him than just brawn, she was certain. On the few occasions she had been close enough, she could see deep in eyes, lurking beneath the surface, a distance and a disappointment. Her curiosity was getting the better of her. He fascinated her and made her want to know about the parts of himself he hid from the rest of the world.

  As enraged as she had initially been, she had to admit Hillary had made a good decision when she employed him. As a leader, he was perfect, and she had to do very little in the way of organizing the Protea Boys—Tom just took over.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got it all under control,” seemed to be his mantra, and most of the time, it was a refreshing relief to be able to mention that the irrigation pipe had broken or the top branches she couldn’t reach needed pruning and then discover the job had been done. It released so much more of her time, and she’d even managed to knock up some flyers promoting the business, and last week she hadn’t been able to fill all the flower orders.

  But there was a downside. Tom drove her mad with his constant intervention in everything and his belief that he had to personally supervise every detail made it virtually impossible for her to get a word in. She ran her fingers through her hair, raking the unruly mess into a tight ponytail, and knowing she was letting temptation get the better of her, she walked out of the door, across the paddock, and to the shed.

  “Afternoon, Georgina.”

  Tom’s greeting rang out, and her face burned as his gaze travelled the length of her body, making her want to smooth her shirt and shake her hair down her back.

  “Georgie,” she said with a slight smile.

  “I was wonder
ing how long you were going to stand, admiring the view.” He laughed as the color hit her face.

  Oh, what is it about this man?

  Tom seemed to delight in catching her out; surely he hadn’t been watching her as she watched him. She sucked in a deep breath of warm afternoon air and adopted her most professional tone. “Good afternoon, Tom. Did you have a good day? Is everything running smoothly?”

  “It’s going pretty well, but I need to spend some time servicing the machines, especially the brush cutters.” Tom opened the back of the truck and leaped up onto the tray, his one smooth, fluid movement uncoiling some spring deep in her belly. She tried not to stare at him, forcing her gaze to stay on the truck bed as he unclipped the safety straps and pulled the gear down.

  “Is there anything you need done tomorrow?” he said from the back of the truck. Georgie took a step backward, her breath catching and her imagination running riot. She visualized him pouncing down on her and grabbing hold of her. She sucked her stomach in quickly at the memory of his hands around her waist.

  “I might send the boys off with the truck and service these two tomorrow”—he patted the two brush cutters—”and have a look at the irrigation system here, do a bit of snipping, and maybe see if I can get to servicing the water pump.”

  Georgie cleared her throat, forcing the words out between her dry lips. “It would be great, Tom.” She allowed her eyes to widen appreciatively at the whisper of the gravel when his feet hit the ground. “But I have to work tomorrow. I’ll be in the office all day. I’ve got paperwork to catch up on.”

  Inside, way away from temptation.

  “It’s fine by me. I wasn’t expecting you to hold my hand.”

  A shiver ran down her spine at the prospect, and she forced her eyes away from his strong, tanned, capable hands that had so gently massaged the wombat.

  “I’ll be doing the hard work outside, and you’ll be inside, keeping your lovely skin out of the harsh sun.” He stepped closer and trailed a finger down her arm, watching with a wry smile the goose bumps following the path he’d created. Her knees buckled, and his touch went through her like lightning, burning a path of invitation. She heaved herself out of reach, ignoring the amusement lighting his eyes.