Chapter NINE
MACKENZIE DUMPED a shovelful of gravel into the wheelbarrow, enjoying the feeling of using her muscles for something real instead of a series of pointless exercises on her gym equipment. It felt good to be outside, accomplishing something, instead of floating around aimlessly inside her house and her own head. Ever since she’d learned via Patrick that her job was history she’d been living in a sort of holding pattern, allowing herself a chance to regroup without the pressure of expectation.
There was only so much regrouping she could tolerate, however. She wasn’t used to floating around. She was used to setting goals and going for them, hell for leather. The problem was, several days of allowing herself downtime hadn’t teased a new goal or direction out of her subconscious. She still had no idea what to do now that she’d reconciled herself to the fact that high-pressure, long working weeks were not a realistic possibility for her anymore.
Hence the shovel and the gravel. The storm damage needed clearing, and even though it was something she could easily pay a handyman from the village to do, it was also something she could tackle herself, and she damn well would.
It didn’t hurt that it was also a great distraction from the deeply uncomfortable, awkward conversation she’d had with Oliver. She’d embarrassed both of them last night, and while she’d tried to explain to him this morning that her rejection had been more about her than him, she was aware that she’d been woefully inarticulate. It would serve her right if he avoided her like the plague for the rest of his time in Flinders.
It was an unpleasant thought and she pushed it away, concentrating on heaving her latest shovelful into the wheelbarrow. She assessed the growing pile of gravel. The wheelbarrow was half-full, and she was conscious that if she made it too heavy she’d struggle to push it up the driveway. She set down her shovel and tried the handles. Not too bad. Another few shovelfuls wouldn’t hurt.
The sound of footsteps made her glance up. Oliver appeared around the curve in her driveway, dressed in faded jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, a shovel balanced on one shoulder.
She was momentarily arrested by the sight he presented. Then her brain kicked in.
“No,” she said, holding up a hand to halt his progress. “It’s a lovely offer, but I couldn’t possibly let you do that.”
His gaze swept over her body and she was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that there were half-moons of sweat beneath her arms and a damp patch between her breasts.
“There’s no way you can do this on your own without falling in a heap.”
She blinked at his bluntness. “Wow. Pull your punches, why don’t you?”
“Just stating the truth.”
“I was planning on doing it in stages, if you must know. A bit today, a bit tomorrow and so on. The water-on-a-rock approach.”
“So I’ll help, and you’ll get it done faster.” He shrugged.
She breathed in through her nose, reminding herself that he was being sweet and generous and thoughtful—as well as presumptuous, bossy and overbearing. More importantly, he was here, talking to her, engaging with her, when common sense said, after the awkwardness of last night, he should be giving her a wide berth.
“You do know I’m not your responsibility, right?” she said.
“Okay. If you want me to go, I will. If you want to move all this on your own—” his hand swept in an arc over her messy, flotsam-and-jetsam-strewn concrete pad “—far be it from me to stand in the way.”
He waited for her to respond, his hand resting on top of the long handle of his shovel, a challenging glint in his eye.
“Who in their right mind would want to do this all on their own?” And she was in her right mind—most of the time. “But I can’t keep accepting favors from you.”
“I’m sure we can think of some way you can pay me back.”
He wore his poker face, his tone utterly neutral, but there was no getting away from the suggestiveness of his words. As if he could read her mind, he cocked an eyebrow.
“You could pay me in lemon tarts, for example.”
“I could. Or I could barter my labor for yours. There must be something I can help you with on your side of the fence.”
The tart would be easier, but she’d always feel as though she’d taken the easy option, and that simply wasn’t her way.
“Good God, yes. There’s still a ton of old clothes, the crawl space in the roof, the back shed...”
“Done. I’ll match you hour for hour,” she said, sticking her hand out to shake on their bargain.
He eyed her hand for a moment before grasping it. His skin was warm, his palm and fingers much bigger than hers.
“You drive a hard bargain, Williams.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m a real hard-ass,” she said drily.
They both knew he’d had her whipped the moment he appeared. As she’d already noted, no one in her right mind would choose to take on the thankless task of moving so much debris on her own.
He surveyed the work she’d already done and, without another word, began shoveling gravel into the wheelbarrow.
“I was going to empty that, actually,” she said doubtfully. “It’s getting really heavy.”
“That won’t be a problem, because you won’t be pushing it.”
“Won’t I?” She gave him a look.
“Nope.”
He didn’t cease shoveling the whole time. She toyed with the idea of embarking on another tussle of wills with him, just for the fun of it, then decided to save her energy. No doubt they’d find plenty of things to disagree about as the day wore on.
Instead, she added her efforts to his, piling the barrow high. Once it was full, he pushed it to the top of the driveway and upended the load.
“We can rake it out later. Let’s concentrate on clearing the area first,” he suggested as he returned.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” she said, giving him a salute.
He gave her a quizzical look. “Am I being too bossy?”
“Not yet. Skating close, but I’ll let you know when you get there.”
“I can hardly wait.”
He smiled at her and the last of this morning’s awkwardness evaporated as she found herself smiling in return. Maybe she hadn’t completely ruined things between them with her scaredy-cat routine last night.
“Hey,” he said after a few minutes of working. “I heard something on the radio this morning that will make you feel better. Apparently some researchers have done a study and discovered that people who sit down all day die younger. So you may have dodged a bullet when they gave your job away.”
“Great. I’ll add that to my list of requirements for my job search. ‘Must not be sedentary.’”
There must have been something in her tone because he threw her a look. “Still beating yourself up on that one, huh?”
“Not beating myself up, as such, but I’m not feeling too inspired at the moment. So maybe there is such a thing as having too many options.” She was aware that he was working twice as fast as her.
Well, she was pacing herself. Contrary to his belief, she wasn’t foolish or reckless with her well-being. She valued her hard-fought-for stamina too much to blow it all in one day.
“What did you want to be when you were a kid?”
His question was so out of left field she stopped and stared at him.
He grinned. “Sometimes when I’m having trouble with a song I go back to the inspiration. Doesn’t get better than childish dreams.”
There was something incredibly appealing about the warmth in his eyes. For the hundredth time she found herself wondering how any woman could cheat on this man.
“I wanted to own a candy shop when I was a kid,” she said. “And when I got a little older, I wanted to be a flight attendant.”
He laughed, clearly amused by the idea of her pushing a food-service cart up the aisle. “You would totally suck at that.”
“No kidding.”
“So why did you choose TV?”
They’d filled the wheelbarrow again and she pondered his question as he pushed it up the driveway and dumped the load.
“I saw this documentary when I was about to finish high school—Baraka. It’s a nonnarrative feature, an amazing journey around the planet exploring humanity and nature....” She remembered the impact the film had on her when she’d first seen it.
“I think I saw that. Is there a scene with monkeys bathing in hot springs in the mountains somewhere?”
“That’s the one. I was so inspired, I saw it nearly a dozen times before embarking on the biggest documentary glom the world has ever seen. Nature, current events, history, I was insatiable. I’d registered to study business at university, but I changed my preferences at the last minute and took film and media classes instead.”
“How did the high-achieving parents take that?”
She was surprised that he recalled her throwaway comment regarding her parents. “They were worried. With good cause. As I discovered after I graduated and started doing the rounds with a proposal for my passion project—a documentary about Dr. Mary De Garis—there’s not a lot of money or interest in documentaries. Especially ones about obscure pioneering feminists in the medical field.” She pulled a face. “In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best put together proposal, either. A little too much idealism, not enough commercialism.”
“So your dreams were crushed?”
“In a way. But I was so persistent, one of the producers I tried to get interested in the project was impressed by my ‘formidable pestering powers.’ That’s a direct quote, by the way.”
“Makes you wonder how he formed such a wrongheaded impression of your personality.”
God, she truly appreciated this man’s wit. It was a challenge to keep a straight face and stay on topic. “It does, doesn’t it? Anyway, he offered me a job as a production assistant, and I was away.”
Oliver paused, leaning his shovel against the wheelbarrow. “So deep inside the hard-nosed producer is a passionate documentary filmmaker?”
He grasped the bottom of his top and lifted it over his head, revealing a black tank top underneath.
“Um, I wouldn’t say that,” she said, more than a little distracted by the play of muscles in his arms and shoulders as he folded his shirt neatly and draped it over the railing of the porch. “I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of my work.”
“Not even a little itch to be behind the camera more directly?”
The sun chose that moment to come out from behind a cloud, gilding him in sunlight, and she lost the power of speech entirely. He had a very, very good body. Shoulders to weep over, arms to sigh over, a chest that made her fingers curl into her palms with the need to touch. Then there was his fine ass and awesome thighs....
She was staring, and she suspected that her mouth was slightly agape, too. Somehow she got a grip on her galloping, unruly libido and prodded her brain into action.
He’d asked her a question. She needed to answer it—and then she needed to check that she didn’t have drool on her chin.
“I don’t think so,” she said, a vague enough answer since she couldn’t really remember his question.
“How you doing? You need to take a break?” he asked, his concerned gaze scanning her face.
“No, no. I’m fine,” she said, even though she was uncomfortably aware that she was suddenly very hot.
She waited until he’d turned away before fanning the front of her top and rolling her eyes at herself. Honestly, anyone would think she’d never seen a good-looking man up close before.
But it wasn’t only that Oliver was extensively easy on the eyes. He was also lovely, pure and simple. Sweet and funny and generous and smart. He remembered throwaway comments she’d made and teased her and seemed genuinely interested in her and her life.
And you pushed him away last night when he kissed you.
She muttered a four-letter word beneath her breath as she drove the shovel into a pile of gravel. She didn’t have a long list of wholehearted regrets in her life—the accident, moments during her marriage—but her knee-jerk reaction last night was on its way to qualifying.
If only she’d been better prepared. If only she’d been more conscious of where things had been going with her and Oliver...
But she hadn’t, and the moment was gone and she needed to move on.
One of those concepts that definitely came under the heading Easier Said Than Done.
As they toiled, no matter which way she turned, Oliver was in her line of sight, either directly or peripherally. He was a hard worker, giving the task his all, and soon he was gleaming with sweat. His tank top clung to the planes of his chest, and his jeans slipped down his hips an inch or so. Every now and then he stopped and wiped his brow with his forearm and she was treated to a flash of hairy male armpit.
She wasn’t sure what planet she’d been living on, but never had the differences between a man’s body and her own been so compelling. Her own chest and underarms were smooth as silk, thanks to Mother Nature and the regular attention of a razor, respectively. Oliver’s hairier, rougher body had her mind and heart racing. She wanted to press her face to his chest and inhale the smell of him. She wanted to wrap her hands around his big biceps. She wanted to lick the point where his neck became his shoulder, right in the little hollow between his collarbone and trapezius muscle. She wanted to slide her hand down his flat belly and inside the waistband of his jeans. She wanted—
She gave herself a mental slap. She was out of control, like one of those oversexed, humpy dogs that went to town on unsuspecting houseguests. Next thing she knew, Oliver would be shaking his leg, trying to remove her from his person.
“Maybe we should take a break,” she said, mostly out of desperation. Energywise, she was holding up well, but mentally she was a mess. A turned-on, confused, aroused mess.
Oliver stopped and considered the walkway. They’d cleared over half of the gravel, an effort she was more than happy with.
“Sure. We’ve made a good start.”
“Do you want a cold drink? I’ve got orange juice or mineral water.”
“Water would be great.”
She headed into the house, aware of him following her, his heavy tread echoing down the hallway. In the kitchen, she served them both water. He leaned against the sink, she against the opposite counter. He swallowed his in one big gulp, his Adam’s apple bobbing. She told herself not to stare and had to resist the urge to roll the cold glass across her chest to cool herself down.
It hit her suddenly that there was no way she could handle another hour of watching him do manly things in faded jeans. Not without an icy shower.
“You know what? Maybe we should call it a day. We got so much done I can probably chip away at what’s left over the rest of the week.”
Oliver rinsed his glass and set it on the drain board. Now that they were in closer quarters, she could smell the strong, spicy scent of his deodorant, along with a faint hint of clean, male sweat.
“If you’re whacked, I don’t mind doing the rest alone.”
“There is no way I could let you do that.”
“I knew you were going to say that.”
Her weakening resistance sent up a silent cheer. He wasn’t going to fight her. Hallelujah.
“When were you thinking of tackling the shed?”
“Want to pencil me into your busy schedule?” His smile was teasing.
“Something like that.”
“Let’s see how you feel tomorrow. If you’re not too sore maybe we can tackle it then.”
“Sounds like a plan.” She swallowed the last of her water and took the three steps necessary to take it to the sink. She was conscious of him standing a couple of feet away as she rinsed her glass and set it beside his.
“Your hair’s gone all curly on the ends,” he said.
She went very still as she felt the brush of his fingers on the nape of her neck. Sensation washed through her—heat and awareness and an almost animal sense of yearning.
It had been so long since she’d lain skin to skin with a man. So long since someone had touched her with anything other than clinical detachment.
Oliver was standing barely two feet away. All she had to do was take a step and she’d be so close to him she’d be able to feel his body heat.
There were a lot of good reasons to ignore that impulse. The concerns that had kept her awake in the small hours hadn’t dissolved overnight. As aroused as she was, as aware of him as she was, she still felt a panicky sense of uncertainty when her imagination moved beyond contemplating what she wanted to do to him to what he might like to do to her. It was one thing to assert she was proud of and reconciled to her damaged body, and another thing entirely to practice what she preached.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his hand drop to his side. She turned her head.
His gaze met hers. Her breath got caught in her throat as she read the carnal intent in his eyes. He wanted her, still. Even though she’d been such an idiot. All she had to do was reach out and he could be hers. All that beautiful, intoxicating masculinity.
She didn’t move. Her arms felt leaden, her feet glued to the ground, weighted by indecision and doubt. Eyes locked to his, she willed him to understand and to make the first move for both of them, breaking this Mexican standoff, forcing her past her own fear.
Kiss me, she willed him. Kiss me and make it all better.
The moment stretched. Oliver’s gaze dropped to her mouth.
He took a step backward. “Let me know if you don’t feel up to working tomorrow, okay?”
Disappointment slammed through her as he headed for the door.
Do you blame him, after last night? Why on earth would he risk you flinging yourself against the nearest hard surface to escape him again? Why would he put himself in that position?
She didn’t blame him, but it didn’t stop her from feeling seriously disgruntled as she followed him to the foyer.
On the surface, it was such a simple equation. He was a healthy, single, consenting adult, and so was she. There was nothing in the world stopping them from acting on the attraction between them. And yet he was about to walk out the door, and she was about to let him.
“Thanks for your help,” she said as they reached the entryway.
“Don’t be too grateful. I plan on working you hard tomorrow.”
“Bring it on.” She managed to produce a smile.
His gaze dropped to her mouth one last time before he turned away. “You’ll have to tell me about Dr. Mary De Garis one of these days.”
“It would serve you right if I held you to that,” she said as he exited.
He didn’t say anything, simply lifted a hand in farewell. She watched until he’d disappeared around the curve in the driveway, then shut the door.
If only he’d kissed her. There was no way she would have pushed him away this time.
If only you’d kissed him.
But she hadn’t. She’d choked, pulled up short by her self-consciousness.
She went to the bedroom and stripped before stepping into the shower in her en suite. All the while she thought about Oliver, about that heated, taut moment that had stretched and stretched and finally broken beneath the weight of her uncertainty and doubt. A year ago, she would have bridged the distance between them and let him know what she wanted. She wouldn’t have hesitated. Not that she’d thought she was some sort of irresistible sexual goddess before the accident, but she’d been around enough to know when a man wanted her and to act on that awareness if the feeling was reciprocal.
Bowing her head, she let the water flow over her back. She hated being afraid. Hated to think that she’d let fear be the deciding factor. Hated to think that this was something else the accident had taken away from her.
She didn’t want to be the sort of woman who let self-doubt rule her world.
Then don’t be.
She lifted her head.
It was such a simple thought. If she took the time to pick it apart, she could find a dozen different ways to debunk it. But maybe she needed to stop thinking so much and start acting. Maybe she needed to seize the bull by the horns and simply get over herself.
She laughed, the sound half scared, half amused as it bounced off the tiles. Before she could talk herself out of it, she reached for the razor. She shaved her legs and under her arms, then got out of the shower and patted herself dry. She rubbed vanilla-and-orange-peel-scented lotion into her body and spritzed perfume onto her breasts. Then she brushed her teeth and wiped the condensation off the mirror and reached for her makeup bag, going all out with the eyeliner and mascara.
She walked into her bedroom and spent considerable time pawing through her underwear drawer, looking for something that wasn’t cotton and practical. She found a matched bra-and-panty set made from see-through black mesh, the panties high cut with lace detail in strategic places.
Sexy. She hoped.
She pulled the underwear on. Then and only then did she turn to face the full-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door.
Her gaze gravitated immediately to the ugly scar that ran between her hips and around her right side. Her focus lifted to the twisted mess that ran from her left shoulder and around her upper arm. Finally, her gaze came to rest on the dark puncture scars on her rib cage, relics from where her fractured ribs had broken through the skin.
None of it was pretty. The scars weren’t old enough to have faded, despite her religious use of rose-hip oil to promote healing. The scar on her belly... There was no way a man could avoid contact with it if he was in bed with her. It would be a very present part of any action that took place.
She forced her gaze away from her stomach, focusing instead on her breasts. They’d always been small but the rest of her was, too, and she’d never had a problem with that. Cupped in sheer black mesh, they looked perky and dainty and, yes, sexy. She moved on to her legs. Before the accident, she’d worked hours in the gym to tone them, but rehab had given her muscles that ordinary gym exercises never could. Her legs would never be long and fantasy inspiring, but they were slim and strong and they looked good to her.
So, nice legs and breasts, with some not-so-great bits in between. Given that she’d been minutes from death out on that dark, rainy road, she figured a bit of not-so-great was a light price to pay for being alive. As she reminded herself every morning, she was lucky to be here.
She met her own gaze in the mirror, her chin lifting in challenge.
Was she really going to do this?
She glanced at her body again, then remembered that moment in her kitchen when Oliver had been standing just out of reach, golden and hard and gorgeous.
So damned good...
Yes, she was going to do this.
She turned to her wardrobe and pulled out her skinny jeans and a snug-fitting black sweater. Not siren stuff, but most of her fabulous clothes were in Melbourne. With her black stiletto ankle boots she was almost certain she could pull off foxy.
Technically, she wasn’t supposed to be traipsing about in high heels—her back and pelvis simply weren’t up to it—but she needed the added confidence they gave her and she figured the short walk next door wouldn’t kill her. Plus, she didn’t plan on being on her feet for long.
She grinned at her own bravado as she zipped the ankle closure on her boots. The smile faded as she stood and smoothed her hands down her thighs and inspected her reflection one last time.
She tweaked the neck of her sweater to show more cleavage, then nodded. She looked good. Her eyes were nightclub sultry and there was color in her cheeks. The sweater hugged her breasts, the jeans molded her thighs. The boots gave her a little bit of extra height and made her legs appear that bit longer.
She was ready. Well, as ready as she’d ever be.
Butterflies did a river dance in her belly as she tip-tapped her way to the front door. Smitty kept pace with her, his face turned upward, his expression questioning.
“Sorry, buddy, but this is a solo mission.”
She was about to leave when she remembered something important. She swiveled and walked back to her bedroom. Yanking open the bedside drawer, she rummaged around, hoping against hope that the box of condoms she’d bought eighteen months ago was still there.
It was. Better yet, the expiry date was good. She extracted one condom and slid it into her pocket, then added another for good measure. Just in case.
Feeling brazen and bold and terrified as all get-out, she left the house.