Forget pancakes for breakfast—hand him a spoon so he could scoop her up.
She glanced over at him, wide smile dialing back a notch, no doubt catching his moronic stare. Then her gaze pinged off his bare chest and trailed down to his shorts’ waistband. Possibly he should’ve opted for a shirt, but he liked the heat generated by her eye-sexing examination.
“Morning,” he said. “Another early bird.”
“I saw the lights go on in here. I’ve been awake for hours. Touch of jet lag still.”
“Takes some adjustment.” Owen gave Gracie a wide berth and entered the walk-in pantry. “As does acclimatizing to the Far North summer,” he said over his shoulder. “Are you cold?”
Her laugh was a smoky chuckle. Fortunately, neither she nor Charlie could witness him closing his eyes for an instant to enjoy it.
“No, just lacking in some warmer-weather clothes,” Gracie said. “I like to travel light, so I gave away a lot of my summer things when the UK winter closed in.”
“I was hot last night.” His nephew’s sleepy voice drifted into the pantry. “And what’s for breakfast?”
“Uncle Owen’s making pancakes, and I was hot, too. In the bus I sleep in my knickers,” Charlie said and then giggled. “Will, tell Gracie the story about Uncle Owen and Uncle Danny in the bunny-hole.”
“What’s a bunny-hole?” Gracie asked.
Owen snatched the baking powder from the shelf and ducked back into the kitchen. “It’s a space under the main floor of my parents’ bus down the back. Big enough to fit a small set of bunks. Daniel and I used to share it.”
“You lived in the house bus, too?”
Gracie sat bolt upright on the barstool, but before Owen could answer, Charlie tugged on her elbow.
“Hey! It’s Will’s story!”
“Sorry.” Gracie stroked Charlie’s hair, which stuck out in wild corkscrew curls. “Tell me about the bunny-hole, Will.”
Owen moved to the fridge and opened it. He’d need the cool air if the story he suspected was the one his mum had passed on to the kids.
“Weeelll,” said Will, relishing the role of storyteller. “The bunny-hole bunks are up against the window, so you gotta remember to close the curtains if you’re on the top one. One day, when Uncle Owen was little, he forgot to close the curtains and he woke up to see people laughing at him as they walked past. Because he only had his undies on and nothing else.”
Charlie clapped a palm over her mouth but it didn’t muffle her high-pitched giggles.
“Oh dear.” Laughter rippled beneath the surface of Gracie’s voice. “I hope they were clean undies, Owen.”
Bunny-hole, rabbit hole. He’d fallen down one of them into a nutty world where discussing underwear choices with a woman he’d just met was appropriate breakfast conversation. “Clean Spiderman ones, yeah.”
Owen pulled out the tray of eggs and placed them on the counter, turning to find Gracie’s gaze once again on him—at ass height. This was a whole new sublevel of the rabbit hole. Did she wonder if he still wore Spiderman underwear? Or maybe she was checking out his attributes for some other reason.
He grabbed a whisk from the utensil jar and pointed it. “Twenty-five years ago, I thought Spiderman was the ultimate in cool. Now I’ve moved past the tighty-whities stage—so can we please stop laughing at my underwear choices and change the subject?”
Charlie climbed onto the lower rung of Gracie’s barstool and whispered into her ear. This time, his niece managed a whisper he couldn’t overhear and two spots of rosy pink appeared on Gracie’s cheekbones.
Owen cracked an egg into the mixing bowl one-handed. “Want to share with the class?”
“Girls don’t share secrets,” said Charlie. “Eh, Gracie?”
“That’s true.”
Since the spots had grown larger on Gracie’s cheeks, curiosity burned in his gut. There was another darting glance to the fly level of his shorts. Interesting.
“So what are your plans for the day?” He cracked another two eggs into the mixing bowl.
Gracie tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I thought some shopping in town with the kids. I need a couple of outfits, and we could pick up supplies for the barbecue tonight.”
“You’ve heard from Glen and Nate?”
She nodded. “They’re both coming. Drew’s very excited to meet you, Charlie.”
Charlie clapped her hands. “I need a new dress.”
Owen whisked sugar into the eggs. “You could try Vee’s Closet in town. I think she carries some kids’ stock as well as adults’.”
“And dresses, Uncle Owen?” Charlie swapped her devilish smile with the angelic one, complete with puppy eyes.
Money to keep her entertained and out of his hair for a few hours? Sounded like a bargain. “Yes, a new dress for you, Charlie-chimp.” He switched his gaze to Gracie. “Morgan might find something she likes in a color other than black as well.”
“The moment you point something out to her, she’ll decide she hates it,” Gracie said.
“I wouldn’t dare make a suggestion.” Owen sifted the first cup of flour into the bowl. “I’ll transfer money into your account for groceries and clothes for the girls.”
Charlie’s brow crumpled. “Aren’t you coming with us?”
Dragging three kids through a supermarket on a busy afternoon when he could sneak in a few more hours of paperwork? Thanks, but no thanks. “No, honey. If someone gets badly hurt in Bounty Bay, I’ll be called to the hospital to help make them better.” That sounded lame, even to him. He stirred the whisk through the flour, forming a thick, lumpy mixture. “I’ll stay home and mow the lawns before our guests come this afternoon.”
“You’re always at the hospital.”
The matter-of-fact resignation in his niece’s voice struck Owen’s gut hard. She wasn’t wrong—but she didn’t understand he needed to work. It was the only thing that made sense in his world.
Charlie climbed down from the rung of the barstool, where she’d been hanging onto Gracie’s arm. “I’ll go see if Morgan wants pancakes.”
“I don’t want to go shopping,” William said. “My wrist is sore.”
“You can stay and pick up any loose rocks or twigs on the lawn before I mow it,” Owen said. “Then you can watch a Harry Potter DVD.”
Excellent plan. Uncle-ing like a boss.
Owen whisked the mixture until the flour lumps dispersed, pausing briefly to cut Gracie a sideways glance. She watched him in return but without any glimmer of the flirtation or interest he’d thought were there earlier. She looked…disappointed.
Day one and already “Gracie Cooper undertaking kid-wrangling duties so he wouldn’t feel guilty” had failed.
Chapter 6
Who would guess uptight Dr. Bennett could look so scrumptious at such an early morning hour? Gracie had nearly fallen off her barstool when he’d appeared wearing nothing but a low-hanging pair of cargo shorts and a scowl. The man was seriously buff—lean and muscled, like a runner. Or a surfer, if the board propped up against the rear garage wall was any indication.
And the black-inked Pacifica-style tattoo on his right shoulder and bicep? Unexpected and as sexy as hell.
A depressing contrast to her frumpy outfit. Not that she had dressed to impress. It was a subtle test designed to see if Owen would take one look at her men’s striped pajamas—five Euros cheaper than the women’s style—and ugly-but-versatile sweatshirt and confirm she’d mistaken the little sizzle of attraction between them. But then his sleepy-eyed sweep around the kitchen landed on her, and in his gaze…heat. Heat that had nothing to do with her wearing men’s clothing or a lace-trimmed negligee.
Shoving aside inappropriate thoughts about her new boss—and Lord, Charlie revealing Uncle Owen now wore boxers because she’d seen them on the washing line—Gracie finished checking that the little girl had brushed her teeth properly.
She slotted Charlie’s toothbrush back in the holder. “I’m just going
back to my room to get dressed, okay?”
“Okay. I’m gonna do some drawing ’til it’s shopping time!”
Gracie laughed. “Why don’t you draw the dress you’d like? I used to love sketching pictures of clothes.”
She’d drawn folders full of them during high school. The models tall and slender, the outfits she’d imagined skimming over their puppy-fat-free hips and thighs.
“I’ll draw a picture of the prettiest dress in the whole wide world.” Charlie hugged her art pad and skipped into the living room.
Gracie stepped out of the kitchen’s back door onto the pathway between the house and guest room, which adjoined the two-car garage. Owen had insisted she park Savannah’s car in there last night since the salty sea breeze was a recipe for rust. She walked toward the guest room then hesitated because one of the automatic garage doors was open.
Chug-chug-chug-rattle-silence.
“Dammit,” came a voice from inside.
Bypassing the sliding door to the guest room, Gracie poked her head around the remaining garage door. Bent over a lawn mower with his back to her, Owen yanked the starter cord.
Chug-chug-chug-rattttttle-silence.
“Problems?” she asked.
Owen flicked a glance over his shoulder and straightened. “The mower’s been sitting awhile. The guy who cuts my lawns now brings his own. But since he’s not due until Wednesday”—he kicked the mower’s wheel with one of his gumboots—“she’s sulking and won’t start.”
“She’s sulking?”
“Figure of speech.” He walked to the workbench that ran down the long side of the garage.
Gracie squinted into the dim interior and took a few steps inside. She hadn’t noticed the workbench, covered with rags and odd tools and some grease-slicked motor parts, last night. Beside the bench, a weed trimmer was in at least a half-dozen pieces. For a man who looked like dirt or motor oil wouldn’t dare cling to his Teflon-slick surface, he sure had one hell of a man cave.
“You’re going to fix the mower?”
“Nobody else around to do it.” He picked up a metal toolbox and dumped it on the opposite side of the mower to where she stood. “Call it a leftover childhood hobby.”
“Fixing lawn mowers?”
“Fixing anything. Often stuff I’d already fiddled with and screwed up.”
“You taught yourself to repair things?”
He shook his head. “My dad taught me, mostly. He used to work as a mechanic before he met my mum. Think I got my love of figuring out how things work from him.”
“You didn’t want to become a mechanic like your dad?”
A cloud passed over Owen’s face then disappeared. “Not after I decided fixing people was way more interesting than fixing a motor.”
“I guess there’s a different kind of job satisfaction in that. Your family must be proud.”
“Yeah.”
His tone was so carefully neutral, Gracie couldn’t work out if there was an undercurrent of sarcasm beneath the word.
“So your parents still live in a house bus? The same one you lived in as a kid?”
A beat of silence followed while Owen stared into his open toolbox. After a moment, he selected a spanner and replied, “The very same.”
“And your siblings? You all grew up in the house bus?”
“Yup.” He crouched beside the lawn mower, slitting his eyes at it as if the thing had defied a direct order. “Think the spark plug is dirty.”
With two older brothers, Gracie was familiar with the male I don’t want to discuss this vibe. Rationally, she should back off and leave him alone. Emotionally, he’d piqued her curiosity, and she couldn’t resist jabbing the sleeping bear a bit more.
“So…no other awesome doctors in the family?”
He angled his chin, a grimace pulling down his mouth. “I don’t encourage that nickname in adult company; it makes me sound like an arrogant dick.”
Yep, she, too, had been guilty of an uncomplimentary first impression. But after meeting Owen, the nickname was actually kinda adorable. “Who started it?”
“One of my fellow interns, during training in Auckland. They called me ‘O’, and after one of our most grueling double shifts, one tagged me as ‘Doctor O-for-Overworked.’ My mate Simon deemed ‘O-for-Awesome’ funnier, and somehow it bloody stuck. It’s since followed me to Bounty Bay, and I suspect Simon contacted one of the triage nurses on the sly.”
He shot her a grin that caused a low flutter in her belly.
“The nurses introduce me to kids as Doctor O-for-Awesome—sometimes it distracts them for a moment; sometimes it makes them smile. It’s worth an embarrassing nickname then,” he added.
“I’m sure the patients you save think it’s very apt.” She gave her watch a pointed glance. “I’d better get myself and the girls ready.”
She backed out of the garage and hurried into the guest room to shower and change. If she woke in an emergency cubicle to see Owen’s face above her, she’d smile, too. Hey, a hottie doctor was easy on the eyes, but not a threat to her equilibrium.
But the guy tinkering with a mower, grease on his hands and scruff along his jaw…
The guy exposing a sliver of his vulnerable self he was probably unaware of…
That guy popped her bubble of safe distance he probably hadn’t even noticed her hiding behind.
***
By the time Gracie herded one sullen teenager and one busting-at-the seams four-year-old into the Beetle, the roar of the lawn mower negated any need for awkward goodbyes. They’d left William curled on the couch with a remote, and packed Charlie’s art pad and colored pencils into her Barbie backpack.
Charlie had begged for Gracie to sketch a couple of designs on another page. Watching Gracie draw, Charlie announced she wanted to show the “shop lady” Gracie’s dress to see if they had one like it.
“Could you make it?” Charlie asked.
She, Gracie, and Morgan walked toward the little boutique shop on Bounty Bay’s main street.
“Nana has a sewing machine, and she made me some pretty skirts,” Charlie added.
“Sorry,” Gracie said. “I got a C-minus for the pencil case I made in sewing class.” And that was only because the teacher was too scared to give her fugly zip-falling-out pencil case a D because her father was on the Board of Trustees.
“What’s a C-minus?”
“C-minus means Gracie’s teacher thought her pencil case sucked,” Morgan said. The teen’s only concession to the sunshine-drenched Far North morning was another baggy tee shirt—this time in an I-wanna-be-invisible gray.
Charlie squeezed Gracie’s hand. “Your teacher was mean. Nana says to try your best, and that always makes you a winner.”
“Your nana sounds like a wise lady.” Though trying hadn’t counted for squat with the Cooper siblings. There were no losers allowed in her father’s house. You either got with the program—his program—or got used to Dad’s lawyerly monologue of How You Are Letting Down The Family. Gracie had spent a lot of time on a hard-backed chair in his home office over the course of her childhood and teenage years.
Vee’s Closet appeared to be the approximate size of a closet—a tiny store squeezed between a secondhand bookshop and a café. Screen-printed tee shirts, swimwear, tote bags, and flip-flops formed a beachy vista in the small window display, and Charlie pointed at a child’s-sized sundress in a pohutukawa flower print also in the window. The three of them entered the shop, a little bell above the door announcing their arrival.
Two women stood at a counter at the rear. One of them—a brunette in a screen-printed Vee’s Closet tee shirt—held up a length of a kiwi-bird-in-flip-flops-printed cotton. The woman with a mass of honey-brown curls next to her rubbed the fabric between her fingertips and smiled. There was something familiar about her girl-next-door prettiness, something about her smile. And how it didn’t quite reach the startlingly green eyes directed at Gracie a moment after the bell tinkled.
�
��Morning,” the woman in the tee shirt said. “I’m Vee. Let me know if you need any help.”
“I help!” The voice came from the women’s left—behind a sofa positioned in front of a small TV with a Husbands’ Day Care sign beside it. A toddler’s head popped up next to a teenage girl who also sat on the sofa. The teenager, a mini-me of the woman with the curls, continued to stare at the TV—the only movement, her fingers working the game controller.
“No, Ruby, you play with Olivia. Mummy will help.” Vee turned back to Gracie. “Sorry, my daughter wants to help every customer, and sometimes she helps a little too much.”
“That’s okay.”
“I’d like to play with the little girl,” Charlie said. “I don’t have any friends.”
That statement managed to grab the attention of all three women and even the teenager on the sofa.
“Way to sound lame, brat,” muttered Morgan, and then in a louder voice added, “She means we’re staying with my uncle, and she hasn’t met any other kids yet.”
“You’ll make lots of friends at school,” the curly-haired woman said, coming out from behind the counter. “You are five, aren’t you?”
Charlie shook her head. “I’m nearly, almost five. My birthday is in May, and I’m homeschooled.”
The woman’s eyebrows rose. “Oh. Well, there’s a homeschool group that gets together here in Bounty Bay. I’m sure your mum will take you to meet the kids there.” She switched her piercing, green gaze to Gracie. “I’m Natalie, by the way.”
Gracie smiled. “I’m Gracie, and this is Charlie and her big sister, Morgan. I’m not their mum, though. I’m looking after the two of them and their brother, William, while their uncle works at the hospital.”
Vee joined Natalie in front of the counter. “They’re Owen Bennett’s nieces?”
“That’s right,” Gracie replied.
Vee smiled down at the girls. “I know your uncle. Our family lived next door to the Ngatas—your uncle is mates with Sam and Isaac—and we all went to the same school, although your uncle was a couple of years ahead of me.”
Teach Your Heart: A New Zealand Opposites Attract Romance (Far North Series Book 3) Page 7