by Mia Madison
“So, what if I hire you? I need to get this crap sorted out.”
“Uncle Rory said a bad word.” Sam's voice pipes up from the pile of mud.
Uncle Rory rolls his eyes and laughs. “Uncle Rory did and he's very sorry. Don't tell your mother on me.”
“I charge twenty pounds an hour,” I tell him. Ugh! I hate selling. What if it's too much? But hell, I know I do a great job. “I'm worth every penny.”
“I'm sure you are.” He smiles at me. I almost expect him to make some crude comment but he doesn't. He doesn't say anything at all. Maybe he's enjoying how bad I am at selling my services.
My heart sinks. Truth is, now that I've turned him down for a date, there’s a tiny part of me wishes I hadn't. Saying “no” has been my default reaction since Gavin.
And then he says, “I’d say you're definitely worth it. Notwithstanding your obvious superior ability to sort out my outdoor space, there's the entertainment value when you make all kinds of wrong assumptions and the view from the windows when you're out here. Altogether worth it.”
I squeal in protest. Of all the...
“Sorry, couldn't resist. Are you always this easy to wind up? Twenty pounds an hour will be fine,” he says completely straight-faced.
And now, I'm Miss No-Sense-of-Humor. This couldn't get any worse.
“Let's say three hours a week. Just one condition,” he says.
“What?”
“That dinner. A date will do instead of an apology for talking about me behind my back with your grandmother and thinking the worst. What else did you say? I'm intrigued.”
“Nothing,” but I can feel my cheeks going red. He'll know I'm not telling him everything we said.
“I have ways of making you talk. I find margaritas work like magic,” he says.
“Not on me.”
“They work on me every time. Don't you like margaritas? Or have I done something else to offend you apart from making you think I had a wife and a kid or six kept out of sight?”
“No.”
“Then here's the deal. I hire you three hours a week on condition you have dinner with me. You can save a ton of shrubs from being murdered. We both get to eat.”
“That's blackmail.”
“I learned from an expert.” He nods over at Sam. “'I'll only eat my cornflakes if I can take my Skywalker action figure to school.' or alternatively 'I won't go to sleep EVER unless you read me another story.' Works on me every time.”
“Don't you know giving in like that is bad parenting? Kids need a firm hand, I hear.”
“I have a very firm hand.” He raises his eyebrows and something melts in me. Does he mean what I think he means? Why the hell am I reacting to that? “A very firm hand but not with Sam. He can wind me around his little finger. Others not so much. So, dinner?”
And now he's looking at me waiting for an answer. I swear my heart stopped. What do I say? Shit!
CHAPTER 6
Rory
I see she's wavering. Confusion painted all over her face. She wants to and she doesn't for some unfathomable reason. There's nothing uncomplicated about women. That I have learned. And usually, I have no interest whatsoever in their complicated thoughts. No need to find out what they're thinking on a date or after a date. I move on before it's an issue. But this one intrigues me. What is going on in her head? Who the fuck knows?
“Look, I'll sweeten the pot,” I say. “Dinner at Berry's. Five hours gardening a week. Final offer. I book a table. You come. I stop killing shrubs. Easy decision.”
Berry's? Shit! Did I say that? I'm just assuming I can get a table and those things are like gold dust. Paul at the station tried to book one for his anniversary a month ahead and there was no chance. But what the fuck, I'll get one somehow. Just because Raymond Berry is on TV with his big chef’s hat doesn't mean his restaurant will be full every night of the week, right?
And she nods. Victory. I'm not sure what swung it, Berry's or the five hours, so I'd better deliver on the restaurant.
“When?” she says. “I can do Thursdays or Fridays, starting this week, if it's not raining hard.”
“Raining?” Oh, she means gardening
“If it's too wet the soil gets compacted,” she says like I cared about the freakin' mud.
“Either day. Whatever suits you. I'll be in touch about dinner. Give me your number.”
She fishes a dirt encrusted card out of the back pocket of her jeans. Mmm! Nice curvy ass. Her nails are not painted or long like other women, more grubby than varnished. I'm starting to like the natural look more and more as I look at her. Her card says “Anna's Landscaping. Garden Design and Maintenance.”
“Right, Anna, I'll let you know about dinner.”
“Right,” she looks as if she's about to say something else but then she looks over my shoulder. “Oh, don't you think you should stop Sam before he climbs that tree?”
I look behind me in panic. Hell! I should know by now. You can't take your eyes off him and onto a set of luscious curves for two minutes and he's getting into trouble. I grab Sam and swing him around and he giggles. I look over the wall. “I'd better give him his tea. Spaghetti hoops and sausages tonight.”
Anna's not smiling at all. “Yes, okay.”
She's a bit frosty given that we're going on a date. What have I said now?
She might be hard work but at least she's not going to get ants in her pants over every twig I chop down now if she's the one doing the chopping.
Maybe asking her out was a big mistake. Who the hell knows with this one?
CHAPTER 7
Anna
Crap! Did I just agree to a date with the Neanderthal “me Tarzan you Jane” type next door? Very good looking as cavemen go but too smooth for his own good. He's obviously used to charming the pants off women and exactly who I need to avoid. Like the Plague.
But five hours work a week! A hundred pounds! Five hours without having to do any selling at all. No matter how awkward a date will be, even if it's a big disappointment, I want the work. Correction. I need the work.
I just wish my body would stop betraying me every time the man comes close. Hell, even when I thought he was married my nipples were popping up to say hello when they had no business acknowledging his existence.
And the way my heart is beating out of my chest has nothing to do with finishing off the work I'm doing in Gran's garden and everything to do with the man next door now running around pretending to be the Monster from the Deep to get Sam in for his tea.
The guy is probably giving the poor kid nightmares but for now, Sam seems to be shrieking and generally having a whale of a time with his uncle. I am absolutely not going to think about what a good daddy Rory would make. No way. No how. That is not where this is going. One date. That's it.
What is my friend Jenny going to say about me going on a date? She'll probably faint.
*
It's obvious Jenny is happy for me when I call her. I miss our girl chats in London— about the only thing I regret about moving to the other end of the country. “Honestly Anna you can't lock yourself away like a nun about to take Holy Orders just because Gavin did the dirty on you!” she says.
“But you know what I was like after him. I can't go there again. I really can't.”
“That's why you're just going to go out and have a good time and see where it goes. One night is not going to kill you.”
I'm pretty sure she's wrong. She hasn't seen Rory. One night might be one date too much. I feel myself starting to unravel with a look. If he touches me...My mind goes into overdrive and I have to bring myself back to the call.
But Jenny is not letting go “You can't spend your life with nothing but plants for company. They never talk back.”
“They don't boss me around either.”
“Are you talking about me or him?”
“Both of you.” We laugh. “He's definitely bossy. Me. You. Dinner. That type. Even worse than Gavin if anything.”
&n
bsp; “Is he whiny like Gavin, like you can't do anything right to please him?”
She has a point. “No. He's not like that but I get the feeling this one just knows exactly what he wants and doesn't hold back from demanding it.”
“I like. Sounds hot. What does he do?”
“I don't know. I never asked him.”
“I bet he's some hot shot businessman or something.”
“No way. He's demanding but I can't imagine him wheeling and dealing somehow. He's too nice for that.” I think about how he was with Sam. Not bossy at all with him.
“Nice? What kind of word is that? Don't tell me he wears a cardigan. If he does, I'm coming down there this weekend and taking you out on the town. Hey? Is there even a town to go out on down there.”
“There's Winbourne, not far away. population twenty-six thousand, a tad smaller than London but you know, we have a wine bar. There's life in the place.” And all the advantages of not bumping into Gavin with stick insect on his arm five minutes after I decided I was over him. Turns out at that point I wasn't as over him as I thought.
“Sounds thrilling. But I'll be there if need be - an emergency rescue. I might get a medal for valor in the face of cardigan man.”
“You're welcome but Rory doesn't wear a cardigan as far as I know.” The thought makes me giggle. “He's older than us but I've never seen a body less likely to be covered in one.”
“Older. Now you really have me worried. Are you talking George Clooney age, pension age, worse?”
“I don't know. Younger than George. I don't know maybe forty. Maybe a bit less. Just more mature than the usual stupid guys our age.”
“Sounds like he's both hot and nice with a big dash of bossy. If you don't want him, I'm on my way.” She laughs but I think she's half-serious.
We chat for a while and end the call. And I think about Rory and how his T-shirt stretched over his powerful back as he hacked through the shrubs. The way the fabric rode up showing bare smooth skin and his jeans slinking low over that ass. Ha, cardigan! Very funny.
*
It's Friday, four days after Rory asked me out and I still haven't heard from him. I don't like how disappointed that makes me feel. It's as if the date mattered to me. When it absolutely does not.
I put off doing his garden yesterday because he hadn't called but now I have to do it because I stupidly said Thursday or Friday and if I don't, he'll know I'm avoiding him.
The heavens haven't seen fit to open with a nice torrential downpour. That would have been handy to keep the turf I just laid in Hillview Street nice and damp and give me an excuse not to turn up here today.
But maybe it doesn't matter that much. I don't need to see Rory to do his garden. He'll be at work and I will just tackle the jungle behind his house while he's out. No problem. It will be fine. We won't have to face each other. He won't have to make awkward excuses and I won't have to pretend to believe whatever they are. Job done. Send invoices. No sweat.
And when I get there the situation doesn't seem so bad. There's no car in front of his house as I expected so the way is clear. I call on Gran first but she's out. She has more of a social life than me. With her tea dances at the church hall, her book club, volunteer work at the Save the Children charity shop and a knitting circle that meets at the library, it's hard to find her in.
I go right next door and around the back of the house through the side gate. I've wanted to get my hands on the mess in Rory's garden since I first came to Cornwall. I'm forever pulling out weeds that have found their way over the garden wall out of Gran's flower beds and I can't wait to get stuck into getting rid of them.
I grab the power tools from my van and start by clearing the knee-high grass and brambles. But I'm just getting into it when I catch sight of the back door opening and there he is. Oh shit. He's not at work. Can't I get any kind of luck at all?
“Oh good. You arrived. I thought I might have to get the pigs in?” he says.
“Pigs?” He has to be kidding me.
“One of the guys at work told me about it last night. Apparently, they clear your garden no trouble at all. Completely organic. They even bring their own fertilizer.”
I can't help laughing at that. He doesn't seem to be avoiding me. Did he just forget about taking me out? Like a guy can forget it's your bed when he brings some woman back to it. I give myself a mental shake. To hell with that kind of thinking. I'm done with that.
“Do you know anyone who owns a pig?” I ask.
“No, but there must be someone given all the farms around here.”
“I can't see how it would work. Pigs won't stop at your garden, they'll probably take a fancy to Gran's roses too. They don't know a mature prize specimen from a weed.” The animal kind of pig is the same as the male kind as far as that goes.
“Some of us know the difference,” he says. Oops! I must have said that out loud. “Do you have anyone in particular in mind?”
“I do, but excuse me, I have to get started, given the hopelessness of the pig idea.”
I hope he takes the hint and goes in—and out of my head, but I can see that's going to be wishful thinking. He shouldn't have come out here with his green eyes and big shoulders reminding me what a hunk he is (as if I could forget that body anytime soon.)
“Monday night,” he says.
“What?”
“The next part of the deal. I take you out. Best I could do. I'm working nights until then.”
“You're in the police?”
“No, I'm a firefighter.”
It figures. I can just imagine him carrying me out of a burning building, right over one of those broad shoulders, his hand on my ass. I just stop myself saying “That's hot” in time and manage a pathetic “That's good.” What? That's good? Is that all I can say? “Okay, Monday then.”
And just like that, I have a date after all, but then he goes and spoils it.
CHAPTER 8
Rory
“I booked a room.”
Fuck! Why did I tell Anna that? She won't know the only way to get a table at this short notice even on a Monday night is to book one of the extortionate rooms in the hotel where Berry's is located. And yes, I'd like to take her upstairs and fuck her senseless after our very fine dinner in Sandy Cove. I've never wanted anything more. But she doesn't need to know that.
“Forget it, Mister. If you think taking me out to dinner means I'm part of the deal, you can shove your garden and your dinner up your very fine ass.” She blushes at that. I don't think she meant to say the fine bit, but I like it.
“I wasn't assuming anything. You were the one doing the assuming. But if you want to seduce me after dinner, you're welcome.” I can't help wanting to tease.
“Of all the pig-headed, arrogant...”
I just shrug. “Whatever. A deal is still a deal. Look, I promise not to touch you. We have dinner. That's it. End of story.”
That seems to stop her getting on her high horse. But then I go and do it again. Somehow, I can't help winding her up. It's so easy. “I won't touch you until you beg me to.”
Her mouth is hanging open at that like she can't believe my nerve.
“You know what, you can do your own flipping garden. Get the pigs in. They'll feel right at home.” She throws down her garden strimmer thing, whatever it is, and then winces as it clatters on the pile of stones she just dug out.
I pick the tool up and hand it to her. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I'd still like to buy you dinner. Pick you up at eight?”
She humphs about it and then she relents.
I've never had to work so hard to sink five hundred quid on a dinner and room with a girl I'm not supposed to touch. I must be out of my mind. In fact, there's no fucking doubt about it I've gone completely gaga.
I leave her in the garden before I make a complete ass of myself. There's a hell of a lot of work to do inside the house and I can put in a good couple of hours before I have to go to the station, stripping the six layers of wal
lpaper lining the spare room.
It's as if it's been put up with super glue that wasn't even invented when the room was papered and the ancient plaster is crumbling away with the paper. But steaming off wallpaper inch by fucking inch is not taking my mind off where it wants to be. In the garden. With Anna.
So, when it starts pouring down with rain, I go right back out there before I can think about it too hard. Fuck waiting to see her again until Monday. She's right out there in the garden and if I'm not quick she'll have gone.
Going outside is the stupidest idea I had today. She's going to get the impression I'm keen or something. That will come to no good. No good at all. But fuck it. I'm out there. The rain is thudding down and she's clearing up.
CHAPTER 9
Anna
“I need some help,” Rory says, the rain dripping off him.
He's not wrong there if he's seriously expecting me to make conversation right now, in this weather. But I must admit, I lit up when he came out. I think I need as much help as him. “That's true, you do need help and not just with your garden.”
He lets my remark pass. “I have all these paint color charts and no clue.”
Is he for real? He wants me to choose wall colors? “I'm sorry, I've got to go. I'm getting soaked out here in case you didn't notice.”
“I noticed,” he says. He's looking down. I follow his eyes. Fuck! My perfectly modest white bra and T-shirt are giving him the Miss Wet-T-Shirt-Contest show of a lifetime.
“You're impossible,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest, a bit late, but better late than never. He's standing there getting soaked too. I try not to let my mind imagine him in the shower. I try but I fail. Badly. The way his gray T-shirt is starting to cling to him doesn't help. Is there such a thing as a Mr. Wet T-Shirt contest? Maybe there ought to be—I'm all for equal opportunities.
“Paint colors are easy,” I say bringing my mind back out of the gutter.