‘Jack...’
And the way she said his name... It twisted something inside him that had no right to be twisted. He hadn’t been aware it was possible to feel like this.
Exposed? Fearful?
No. What he was feeling wasn’t fear. It was something far deeper, and far, far sweeter. It was as if life had thrown him a constant barrage of sour lemons, yet here was something sweet and wondrous, something he hadn’t known existed.
She was gazing up at him with concern, and her concern was doing his head in. Or more. It was the fact that she smiled; she made Oliver smile. It was the way she drank beer like a guy and then grinned at him. It was her skill with horses, the way she heaved wood, her unexpected strength.
It was the way she was looking at him. It was the way the sun was glinting on her burnished curls.
Her eyes were wide, watchful, and her hands still held his.
‘Jack...’ she said again and what was a man to do?
That one word did his head in. That one word dispelled all caution.
Sensible or not, he did what he had to do.
He bent his head and he kissed her.
* * *
Alexander Patterson had been kissed before. Of course she had. She was cute and blonde and her family was part of Manhattan’s Who’s Who. She’d been regarded as a desirable girlfriend for as long as she could remember, and she’d enjoyed being a girlfriend.
She’d had some pretty cute boyfriends. None serious. She didn’t do serious. But she did do kissing, or she’d thought she did.
But this wasn’t kissing as it existed in the past world of Alexander Patterson. This was something else.
What was it with this guy? He had something...
Something indescribable.
From the moment his mouth touched hers, the warmth and the heat of him, the strength, the sheer masculinity of this man, seared straight into her body, and she felt herself begin to burn.
He hadn’t wanted to kiss her. She’d known it. And okay, it hadn’t actually been all his idea. She knew how to get a guy to kiss her and she’d looked up at him and held his hands and she’d wanted it.
If he was a terrible kisser she had only herself to blame, but nothing was further from the truth. She felt her lips fuse to his, she felt a weird buzzing sensation in her head, she felt her arms wrap round his broad, strong body and she felt... Or maybe she shouldn’t feel. Maybe she should just be.
There didn’t seem much choice. He was plundering her mouth, demanding response. He’d taken her face between his hands, tender yet firm, centring her, holding her, and the intense sensation was enough to make her weep.
She felt beautiful, desired, beloved?
Beloved? Stupid word.
Maybe she’d asked for this kiss. If it worked, it was a way to make the guy know he was human. Kissing was a game she was good at. It was nothing more.
But this...this was everything more. This was...
Jack.
Oh, the feel of him. The taste of him. The pure, raw strength of the man she held.
She clung and kissed and let herself be kissed and she felt herself change, transform, turn from a silly kid trying to make this guy human to a woman who wanted this man so much that if he swept her up right now she’d—
‘No.’ The word was wrung from him like it caused sheer physical pain to say it. Those same lovely, tender hands were putting her away from him with a strength she didn’t believe possible, and she could have wept.
‘N...no?’
But no it was. He was holding her at arm’s length, and he was looking at her as if she was an alien from outer space. Like she was nothing he recognised.
‘I don’t want this.’ The words seemed to be wrung out of him.
‘I didn’t think I did either,’ she whispered, touching her mouth, which felt swollen and bruised. And hot. Really hot. ‘Maybe, maybe I was wrong.’
‘We have to live together for six months,’ he growled. ‘That’s not going to happen if we can’t keep our hands off each other.’
‘I don’t know,’ she managed, trying to make her voice casual. Trying to find the strength to make a joke out of what was anything but humorous. ‘That’d mean we only had to renovate the one bedroom.’
His breath hissed in. He stared at her like she’d grown two heads. He definitely thought she was alien, she thought. A scarlet alien.
‘I do not want—’
‘Of course you don’t,’ she said, and she was proud of the way she made her voice sound almost polite. Almost indifferent. ‘And neither do I. But I’m a practical girl and did you know my bedroom roof leaks? But of course, a day on the roof and a bucket of nails is far less complicated than sharing your bedroom. So, shall we get on with our evening chores? You check the back paddocks, I’ll see to Sancha. By the way, you need to decide whether you want to replace the red gum wood used to build your veranda posts or go for something cheaper like treated pine. So much to think about... Oh, and I bought Chinese takeaway for dinner. All we need to do is reheat it. Hooray, no sausages. Now, any other instructions...boss?’
How had she done that? A part of her was inordinately proud of herself. Somehow she’d made it sound like that kiss meant nothing. She’d made it sound like she kissed guys all the time, and this had been just one more kiss.
She’d made it sound like it didn’t matter, but she looked into his face and she knew that it mattered a lot. And for her... She knew it mattered more than anything she’d ever felt in her life.
‘Don’t fall for the boss.’ She heard her brother’s advice ringing in her head and she thought, Too late, too late.
How could she have fallen in a matter of days?
She hadn’t, she told herself savagely. This must be jet lag, loneliness, pure emotional nonsense. She was moving on and he was, too.
‘Right,’ he said in a voice she didn’t recognise. ‘Horses first.’
‘Horses, it is,’ she said, and she made herself sound cheerful. She made herself grin. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
‘I shouldn’t have—’
‘And neither should I,’ she said. ‘It was the way you handled Anna. There is nothing sexier than a man with a baby. Remember it and stay clear in future. It’s a wonder you weren’t jumped by every woman in Wombat Siding. So enough of the kissing, and let’s get on with what we need to do. Six months’ work, coming up.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
FROM that moment on, Jack’s new veterinarian and handyman threw herself into her work like it was the only thing in the world that mattered.
Alex worked with the speed of a guy, and the skill of two men.
She left him stunned.
The kiss was forgotten. Or maybe it wasn’t completely forgotten. It was like the kiss had created new boundaries. They knew what would happen if they approached those boundaries and both of them were steering clear.
Alex had relaxed, though. The kiss seemed to have cleared the air, allowing her to be who she was. She worked with cheerfulness as well as skill. She whistled, she strolled the paddocks as if she belonged; she loved the horses, and she revelled in the beauty of his property.
She teased him, she laughed at him, she demanded he teach her how to handle a stockhorse...and every time he turned aloof she put her hands on her hips and glared.
‘You want me to kiss you again?’
She was treating the kiss as a joke?
But it was the right thing to do, he conceded, as the days turned to weeks. The kiss had happened. If they skirted round it, it’d stand between them, a barrier to any normal relationship. By laughing about it, they could forge ahead.
And they were...forging.
When he’d employed Alex he’d hoped to get some decent farm help. That Alex was filling that
function was doing his head in, but he had no choice but to accept it as fact.
He was almost totally occupied rebuilding neglected fencing. Maybe if she’d been a guy, maybe if the kiss hadn’t happened, he’d have her helping, but he wasn’t going there. He didn’t intend spending every day working alongside her. He’d decided if she spent her time caring for the horses, making sure his pregnant mares were okay, she’d earn her money, but that was never going to be enough for this woman.
She made lists and demanded timber. She rebuilt the veranda rail and he couldn’t believe the job she did. She repaired window frames.
She would have repaired the roof but he drew the line there. The ancient slates were slippery and brittle. He wasn’t game to touch them himself, but in the face of Alex’s determination to have a non-leaking roof he employed a roofing company.
‘Wow,’ Alex said two weeks after arrival. She was cooking her specialty—pasta—which seemed pretty much the only meal she knew how to cook. ‘A working bathroom. A roof that doesn’t drip. A veranda I can sit on—what luxury. If you’re not careful you might have me for ever.’
‘If you learned to cook I might want you,’ he growled, and she grinned and passed over a loaded plate.
‘Real men don’t eat pasta?’
‘Not every night.’
‘Every second night,’ she corrected him. ‘Interspersed by your turn. And your sausages aren’t so hot.’
‘I do a neat poached egg. Aren’t girls supposed to like cooking?’
‘Only if they don’t like hammering nails. My mom told me if I want to get on in life, I should never learn to cook and I should never learn to type.’
‘Your dad and mom sound great.’
‘They are,’ she said. ‘Mostly.’
‘And sometimes not?’ He hadn’t meant to ask. They didn’t cross personal boundaries. The question just seemed to have come out all by itself.
‘Sometimes not,’ she said, humour fading.
‘Want to tell me about it?’
She gazed across the table, astonished. As if she’d never expected such a personal question. Fair enough. But it wouldn’t hurt to relax a little, he thought. After two weeks, those boundaries were solidly in place.
‘There are four kids in our family,’ she told him. ‘Ellie and Matt are twins—they’re the oldest. Then there’s Charlotte and finally me. We ought to be one big happy family but my dad’s always played favourites. There’s nothing he won’t do for Charlotte and me, but for Ellie and Matt...it’s like he always does what’s fair. It’s like he’s pretending to love them and it doesn’t work. He and Matt have been at each other’s throats from the time I can first remember, and Ellie... Dad snaps at her and she stops eating. She’s been struggling with anorexia all her life. It’s made for a stressful home life—but not as stressful as yours. What were your parents like?’
He’d walked right into that. You tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine. Could he now say, Mind your own business, and refuse to reply?
‘My mum was single and flighty,’ he told her, deciding to stick to facts. ‘When Grandma was alive it was okay but after she died, things fell apart. Mum took off when I was eight and Sophie was six. Grandpa disappeared into grief and the bottle, and from then on we fended for ourselves.’
‘You were left caring for Sophie?’
‘Yes,’ he snapped, and wished he hadn’t.
‘Ouch,’ she whispered. ‘And then she got sick. That makes our family fights pale into nothing.’
‘We survived,’ he said, but then he thought, No, we hadn’t. Sophie had crumpled.
And she saw it. He looked across the table and he saw recognition of his pain.
He did not want this woman feeling sorry for him.
‘So no one taught you to make anything but sausages,’ she said thoughtfully, and he realised with relief that she wasn’t following through. Maybe she realised how much he didn’t want to go there.
‘A bit of invalid cookery, too.’ That was as far as he was prepared to go, and she saw the flicker of recognition for what lay behind those words.
‘Maybe we could learn,’ she said thoughtfully, and he thought, What?
‘Sorry?’
‘If I’m here for six months... At home we have a gorgeous maid who cooks like a gem. What if I write to her and ask to send us her favourite recipes. If I make one every second night, and you do the same, we could have fun.’
Fun. Fun was so far from where he was at, he felt flummoxed.
She was suggesting they use this big old kitchen for what it was meant for—cooking. Real cooking.
He thought back to the distant memories of when his grandmother was alive—a kitchen full of warmth and the smell of baking, and of kindness. It was a faint echo, insidious in its sweetness.
Don’t go there.
But Alex was looking at him like an expectant puppy, big-eyed and eager.
‘You do it,’ he growled.
‘Not if you don’t, too,’ she retorted. ‘Don’t cook or type. That’s my mantra—unless I’m working for a guy who’s prepared to cook and type, as well.’
‘You reckon these fingers can still cope with a keyboard?’ He held up a broad, work-worn hand and she grinned.
‘Maybe not, so we both give typing a miss. But I’m thinking you don’t need skinny fingers to make a peach pie.’
‘Peach pie?’
‘Maria’s favourite.’
He gazed at her across the table and she gazed back, chin tilted, challenging.
Cook. In this kitchen. With this woman?
Nope. Not with this woman. He’d be cooking every second night while she did evening stables. And vice versa.
Fun?
Her challenging gaze said it could be fun. Eating Alex’s peach pie.
Maybe he could hurry his turn at evening stables and watch her cook. A bit.
And in return?
Not peach pie. His gaze wandered to the shelf beside the stove, to a mass of cookery books. To one in particular, an ancient school exercise book, crammed with cut-out recipes and handwritten notes.
His grandmother had died when he was seven, but before then that recipe book was out on this table every day.
Alex was following his gaze. ‘Your grandma?’ she asked, and he nodded.
‘So Maria will be teaching me and your grandma can teach you.’
What was it about those simple words?
They made it feel like the kitchen could come alive again. Like it could breathe. He felt the echoes of the warmth he’d felt when his grandmother had lived, and he looked across the table at Alex and saw...
He wasn’t sure what he saw. There was nothing of his grandmother in Alex. No shadows of the past.
But a promise of the future?
Ridiculous.
‘Deal, then?’ Alex asked, and he nodded, curtly.
‘If you want.’
‘You want, too,’ she said.
Did he? No. He was doing it to humour her. She was right, sausages and poached eggs and pasta weren’t a balanced diet. Her suggestion was sensible.
‘I’ll see if she has recipes for steak as well as sausages,’ he said, and she grinned.
‘You’ll have to do better than that, boss,’ she said. ‘This is a competition. Every night we rate our dinner out of ten. At the end of six months, the winner gets to pay for a degustation meal in Sydney’s best restaurant as a farewell dinner for me.’
‘I can’t leave the farm,’ he said, startled. ‘No.’
‘You can’t run the farm without help,’ she said evenly. ‘You know that. You need to get training solidly under way for the colts in the top paddock. You have a great breeding program going and that takes time, too. There’ll always be disasters needing y
our attention. And how are you going to attend the sales, get to market, do what you have to do? I’m one of a long line of employees, Jack Connor.’ She gave a cheeky smile. ‘I may well be your best but I won’t be your last. So my replacement will take care of the farm while you and I have a first and last date. Degustation meal in Sydney the night I leave. Deal?’
‘Deal,’ he said because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
They’d kissed, he thought, and then they’d moved on. Now she was proposing they could have one dinner together in Sydney, as she left. And that’d be the end of it.
‘Excellent,’ Alex said, and beamed. ‘I’m off to email Maria. And you need to start reading. Winner gets to choose the restaurant. I’m starting research now.’
* * *
They’d achieved a deal with cooking. They hadn’t achieved a deal with Oliver. Alex had taken him on as her personal project, and she was like a pesky battering ram with her demands for the child. Her demands weren’t big enough to knock him over but they were bothersome all the same.
The kid came over after school, twice at weekends. He took Sancha out into the home paddock and gently led her round, let her graze and kept her controlled while her foal frolicked around her.
That was fine by Jack. It was what he’d agreed to. He even liked that it gave the kid pleasure. He was all for giving the kid some pleasure but what he didn’t like was the way Oliver looked at him. Like he was some sort of superhero.
Sophie had looked at him like that. No matter how bad life got, she had an infallible belief that Jack could fix it.
There was no way he was going down that road again, no matter how hard Alex pushed. He knew, too well, that encouraging dependence did nothing, achieved nothing, and only meant future pain. When Oliver arrived he normally headed down to the creek, found fencing projects far away when the kid was here.
But Alex pestered him to stay, and finally, stuck in a stall waiting for a mare to foal, she fronted him directly.
‘What is it with you and Oliver?’ she demanded. ‘He’s aching to help more. You let him walk one horse. What he’d really like to do is ride. There are quiet mounts. He already loves Cracker. Why can’t we let him?’
Taming The Brooding Cattleman Page 9