Or someone fulfilling a lifetime dream.
She studied his profile, intrigued by the idea. “You’ve always wanted this place, haven’t you?”
“I believe the correct word is covet. And yes, I have. I have coveted the hell out of this place ever since I was old enough to understand who Edna Walling was and how freaking amazing this design is.”
“Well, congratulations. That’s very cool. It’s not every day a man gets his lifelong dream.”
By unspoken accord, they turned and started walking toward the house.
“True. So why do I have this cynical voice in my head saying ‘Be careful what you wish for’?”
“Don’t listen to that voice. Stick a sock in its mouth. There’s nothing wrong with this place that you can’t fix.”
He was silent for a long moment, then he gave her a warm look. “Thanks for coming with me today, Mel. I appreciate it.”
There was a shadow in his eyes as they found hers. For the briefest of moments he looked almost sad. Lonely, even. Then he was busy pulling his car keys from his pocket and checking his phone for messages, and the moment had passed.
Mel scoffed at herself. The man walking beside her had everything. He was handsome, wealthy, successful, respected, sought after. No way was he lonely. As if.
FLYNN KEPT UP A steady stream of conversation as he locked Summerlea and led Mel to his car. He talked about some of his plans for the house, the state of the lawns, the contents of the toolshed he’d discovered. As they drove to her place, he talked about the weather, the local village, her business. He tap-danced his ass off, keeping things light and breezy.
Anything to keep her smiling and laughing and engaged.
She’d been close to tears earlier. She’d looked so wounded, so abject as she’d apologized for keeping him waiting. For long seconds he’d been sure she was going to lose it, and he’d been on the verge of offering her a shoulder or a handkerchief or a word of comfort. Then she’d pulled herself together and it was as though the moment had never happened.
Except it had.
There had been that other moment when they were transplanting the orange tree, too. He’d made that crack about Hamish Greggs being an ungrateful ass and she’d stared at him as though she couldn’t quite believe her ears. As though no one had ever said anything even remotely supportive to her about that night.
It was beginning to dawn on him that perhaps Owen Hunter was a bigger dick than Flynn had ever believed. He’d never had much time for the guy—it seemed to him that Owen was always on the make, always desperate to flash his wealth around and assert his social superiority—but he’d never considered Hunter truly malicious. Until now.
Flynn had always been pleased to see Mel when he ran into her over the years, even though they’d never really had a chance to get beneath each other’s social veneers—a brief conversation at so-and-so’s charity fundraiser or what’s-his-name’s cocktail party was hardly conducive to forming a deep understanding of another human being. But he’d liked the sense of Mel that he’d garnered from those superficial meetings.
He didn’t like the thought that Owen had put that wounded look in her eyes. Didn’t like to think about what a man might do or say to a woman to make her so tentative and wary.
Mel unclipped her seat belt the moment he pulled to a stop in her guest parking area.
“Thanks for letting me poach some ideas. I promise not to rip them off too slavishly.” The nervousness was back. She was practically humming with it.
“Thanks for keeping me company.”
She gave him that uncertain smile again, then reached for the door handle. “Enjoy the rest of your stay.”
She slipped from the car and shut the door firmly behind herself before he could think of an excuse to keep her talking. By the time he climbed out she was halfway to the house, her stride brisk.
He stared at her rapidly retreating back, wondering. Then he grabbed his gear and made his way through the garden to Tea Cutter Cottage.
He might like Mel, but she was none of his business. His dance card was full to overflowing with his father’s illness and Randall Developments. And now, of course, he could add the beautiful, impractical, expensive white elephant that was Summerlea to the list.
As what had happened with Hayley had so brutally illustrated, he was not in a position to be interested in a woman.
He let himself into the cottage. He dropped his bag in the bedroom, then walked to the kitchen and put the kettle on. Five minutes later, he opened the rear door and sat on the steps that looked out over the garden. The temperature had dropped a little, but he simply turned up the collar on his coat and curled his hands around his coffee cup.
For the first time in a long time, he had nowhere to be, and no one relying on him for anything.
He stayed on the step for a long time.
TWO WEEKS LATER, Mel exited the local bakery and collided with a wall of hard, male chest.
“I’m so sorry—” She looked up into Flynn’s blue eyes and forgot the rest of her apology. “Oh, hi.”
“Hi. How are you doing, neighbor?”
She glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see Hayley, but he appeared to be alone. Again.
“I’m good, thanks.” She straightened her sweater, wondering why she always seemed to be at her worst when she ran into him. Last time she’d been covered in mud, this time she was covered in paint splatter. Then a thought occurred. “You’re here to pick up your keys, aren’t you? Summerlea is yours.”
He held up a chunky key ring and gave it a triumphant shake to confirm her guess.
“Congratulations. That’s great. Are you staying the weekend?”
“I am. Although it’s going to be interesting.”
He lifted the shopping bag he was holding and she saw he’d bought what looked to be a month’s supply of candles in all shapes and sizes. It took her a moment to join the dots together.
“You don’t have power?”
He shrugged sheepishly. “Some idiot forgot to have the utilities connected. So I’m camping out, old-school style.”
She frowned. “You know the temperature is going to drop into the low single figures overnight, right?”
“Brian and Grace didn’t quite get around to installing central heating, so I’m not missing out on anything there. But there’s a woodpile the size of a small country behind the garage so I figure I’ll be right.”
All very well for him to say, but he had no idea how cold it got here on the peninsula sometimes. Without all the concrete of a city to hold the heat of the day, the nights could be bitterly cold. Recently, Mel had had to resort to using two quilts on the bed as well as her electric blanket to keep the chill out.
“Come and stay in one of my cottages,” she said impulsively. “I’ve only got two bookings this weekend, and you can have your choice of Tea Cutter or Windrush. It’ll be my housewarming present to you.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m actually kind of looking forward to camping out. I’m about to go buy some cheese and wine, and I’m going to hunker down in front of one of the fireplaces and pretend I’m living in another century.”
He almost made it sound attractive, but she knew better. She gave him a dry look.
“I’ll leave the key to Tea Cutter under the front door mat if you change your mind in the middle of the night.”
He laughed. “Ye of little faith.”
“What can I say? I’m a pragmatist. A pragmatist who likes to be warm.”
A woman with a stroller was approaching and Mel touched Flynn’s forearm to alert him to the fact. Together they moved out of the woman’s path so they could continue their conversation.
“How’s the orange tree?” Flynn asked.
“I was a little worried after the first week but I found new growth on a couple of the branch tips yesterday. I figure that’s a good sign.” She looked to him for confirmation, since he clearly knew far more about these things than she did.
“It is. Y
ou might want to give it a gentle feed with something organic, too. Help it establish a new root system.”
“Thanks. I will.”
She suddenly became aware of how close they were. Somehow, in moving aside for the stroller, they’d also moved together, and she could see the small crease marks at the corners of his eyes and the smile lines around his mouth. If she inhaled deeply, there was a very real chance her breasts would brush his arm.
Quickly she took a step backward, something close to panic tightening her belly.
“You probably have tons to do. And I need to get back to my painting,” she said.
“What are you painting?”
“The bathroom.” She took another step backward. “Good luck with your campout. The key will be under the mat if you need it.”
“It’s generous of you, but I won’t.”
He was watching her with the same very focused intensity that she’d noticed at Summerlea two weeks ago. She made a big deal out of shuffling her bags around before offering him a small farewell wave.
“See you around.”
She turned and walked away. It wasn’t until she passed the butcher’s shop that she remembered her car was parked in the opposite direction. She glanced over her shoulder, but Flynn was still in front of the bakery, his phone in his hand. Feeling like a teenager, she took the long way around, past the supermarket and through the parking lot until she’d done a loop and could approach her car from behind.
You’re an idiot.
It was true, for more reasons than she cared to count, not least of which was the fact that her heart was pounding out a fast, heated beat beneath her breastbone.
She threw her bags into the back of her car and climbed in. It was tempting to lie to herself and put her body’s reaction down to the fact that she’d taken a completely unnecessary walk around the block, but Mel knew better. Standing so close to Flynn for those few seconds, she’d suddenly remembered that he was a man and she a woman and that it had been a long time since she’d felt the warm press of another body against her own.
On one hand, she understood why it had happened. He was handsome, after all, and he’d been nice to her. A woman would have to be dead from the neck down not to respond to his strong, very male body and natural charm.
The thing was, Mel had thought she was dead from the neck down. But apparently she wasn’t. For the past year, she’d been in survival mode. She’d done what needed to be done to keep her head above water and no more. There had been a certain comfort in her batten-down-the-hatches mentality—she hadn’t asked too much from the world, hadn’t risked herself, hadn’t expected too much from herself.
But now the nonessential parts of her life appeared to be coming back online. The parts that got lonely and horny and enjoyed flirting and laughing with a man. How…strange. She’d honestly thought she would never be interested in a man again. Naive, perhaps. Or maybe it had simply been a way to get through those hard first months. Whatever the reason, the notion that she might be ready to reenter the world of male-female relations made her feel more than a little anxious and panicky.
Because even if her body was ready, her mind wasn’t. Not even close. It would be a long, long time before she was ready to trust a man again.
She forced herself to take a deep breath and calm down. She was freaking out over nothing, over nobody.
After all, on the most basic of levels, even if she had felt the stir of desire as she stood next to Flynn and registered his body heat and looked at his mouth and inhaled his scent, it wasn’t as though anything would come of it. The man was in a relationship with someone else, a beautiful, sophisticated woman from his own world. The chances of anything happening between her and Flynn were nonexistent.
Her thoughts slowed as her anxiety receded and common sense returned. A long time ago, before Owen, before she’d been stripped of her confidence and sense of herself, she’d enjoyed sex. Not indiscriminately, but it had been a normal, healthy part of her life. It wasn’t exactly a miracle that her sexual self was rising from the ashes of her marriage in the same way that so many other aspects of her self had. Her sense of humor. Her pride. Her determination. It was a good sign. A sign that she was healing.
Feeling more rational, she started her car and headed for the certainty of home.
CHAPTER FIVE
FLYNN BREATHED IN THE COOL winter air as he walked toward the house later that day, allowing the fact that he was here and this was real and that he was actually doing this to sink into his bones. Yes, restoring Summerlea was going to be a huge challenge, but it was doable. It was definitely doable.
He’d spent the past few hours completing a slow, painstaking tour of the garden. He had a list as long as his arm of basic maintenance issues to attend to, and he mentally allocated his free time to tasks as he climbed the stairs. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that it would take him a long time to turn things around here, doing it piecemeal, when his schedule allowed. A lot of people would simply throw money at it and let other people make the problems go away, but Flynn hadn’t bought Summerlea to delegate. Once, he’d hoped to spend his life making other people’s gardens beautiful, livable and sustainable. He’d given that dream up, but Summerlea offered him a different outlet for his passion.
Some people might call it a sop, and maybe it was. But it was his sop, and he was bloody well going to give it his all.
He kicked his shoes off inside the door, then padded around the house in his socks, washed his hands and finally carried the groceries he’d bought for dinner from the kitchen to the living room. He lit half a dozen candles, then set a match to the fire he’d laid earlier. Flames licked up the kindling and flared along the logs and he felt a very primitive sense of satisfaction.
Me man, me make fire.
Smirking at his own idiocy, he turned his thoughts to dinner. He’d bought a range of goodies—a truly indulgent picnic, really. A round of brie, gourmet crackers, olives stuffed with almonds and feta, tiny bell peppers filled with goat’s cheese, salty cashew nuts, a long, thin loaf of Afghan bread slathered with garlic, triple-smoked ham. For dessert, he had a slab of fruit and nut chocolate, and he had a choice of either an Australian shiraz or a New Zealand pinot noir to accompany his feast.
He was unwrapping the creamy-looking round of brie and contemplating which bottle of wine to open when he heard what he thought was a knock at the front door. He stilled, head cocked to one side. Sure enough, after a few seconds the knock sounded again.
He walked into the hall, baffled as to who it might be. The only people he knew in Mount Eliza were Mel and Spencer, the real estate agent. Given the way Mel had retreated when he’d bumped into her in town, he figured the odds were good it was Spencer. Which was a bummer, for a number of reasons.
Then he opened the door and recognized Mel’s tall, athletic silhouette in the deeper gloom of the porch.
“Mel. Hey,” he said, genuinely surprised.
“Oh. You’re here.” She made a nervous gesture with her hand. “When you didn’t answer, I thought maybe you’d gone out. I was just going to leave these here for you…?.”
For the first time he registered the two lanterns and a bottle of what looked to be kerosene at her feet.
“I found these in my shed when I was tidying up this afternoon and thought of you,” she explained.
“I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me all week.”
She smiled, then moved away. Her car keys jingled in her hand. She was about to run again.
“Hang on to them for as long as you like.” She started to take another step backward but he reached out and caught her wrist.
“Not so fast. Before you go rushing off again, I need to make an unmanly confession—I have no idea how to light one of these things.”
Her wrist was warm in his hand. He could feel her pulse beneath his fingertips.
“They’re pretty simple.” She tugged lightly on her wrist and he let her go.
> “Does that mean you won’t come in and have a glass of wine with me and show me what to do?”
She glanced over her shoulder, almost as though there was someone waiting for her in the car. For the first time it occurred to him that maybe there was, that maybe she had somewhere else to be.
Someone else to be with.
She was an attractive woman, after all. Young, single. The odds were good that the first guy with eyes in his head had snapped her up once her divorce was finalized.
“Unless I’m stepping on someone else’s toes?” he asked.
“No. I just— Sure, I can show you how to light them.”
He noticed that she’d avoided responding to the rest of his invitation. He grabbed one of the lanterns by its wire handle and held the door wide while she collected the second and the bottle of kerosene. She entered the house and he gestured for her to head into the living room. Firelight cast a warm glow over the room, while the few candles he’d lit created their own small pools of light.
“Do you have matches or a lighter?” Mel asked as she placed her lantern to the left of where he’d set up his camping gear.
He pulled the box of matches from his hip pocket and handed them over. She knelt in front of the first lantern, carefully pouring kerosene into the tank below the wick. A strand of her long, curly hair slid over her cheek and she pushed it back impatiently. She put the lamp together, then lifted the glass shade. A match flared to life in her hand and she applied it to the wick. It took immediately, burning with a bright blue-and-orange flame before settling down. She slid the glass into place and a warm glow spread out from the lantern.
“That’s more like it. Much more civilized,” he said.
Mel glanced at him briefly, her mouth curved into that uncertain smile of hers. Then she shifted to the second lantern and repeated the process.
While she was occupied, he opened the bottle of shiraz and poured wine into two of the plastic tumblers he’d bought along with his other supplies that morning.
“There you go,” Mel said as the second lantern came to life. “When you want to shut them off, just lift the glass and blow out the flame. They can be a bit smelly, so make sure the room stays ventilated.”
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