First Comes Baby...: The Loner's Guarded Heart (21 page)

His stomach growled again. His mouth watered some more. In the sunlight her hair glowed all the hues of a varnished piece of sandalwood and his stomach clenched. He couldn’t believe he’d ever thought it mousy. Anticipation leapt to life in his chest. He reached out to unlatch the gate again when reality crashed around him.

This couldn’t happen. He didn’t do afternoon tea parties.

You don’t do chess lessons either, a wry voice in his head pointed out.

Yeah, well, as soon as he found a way to get out of those you could bet your life he would.

‘Kent?’

Her soft contralto voice tugged at him. She turned to survey the surrounding area and with a muffled oath he ducked down behind the fence.

Grown men don’t hide behind fences, he told himself. For Pete’s sake, what would it hurt to have another cup of tea with her? Yesterday’s hadn’t killed him.

A scowl shuffled through him. He knew exactly how it would hurt. He’d recognised the loneliness in her eyes. If he had a cup of tea again with her today it’d become a habit. A daily thing. She’d start to rely on him. He scowled down at his work-roughened hands. He wasn’t going to let that happen.

He’d seen the flash of awareness in her eyes yesterday. He knew exactly where that would lead, because in the space of a heartbeat desire had thrummed through him in unequivocal response. He’d be an idiot to ignore it.

If he met with Josie Peterson for afternoon tea today, she’d be in his bed by the end of the week.

His skin went hard and tight at the thought.

But he knew women like Josie didn’t indulge in affairs.

And men like him didn’t offer anything more.

He edged away from the fence and stole back the way he’d come, throbbing with a mixture of guilt and desire. He tried to tell himself this was best for both of them. Somehow, though, the sentiment rang hollow.

A spurt of anger shot through him, lending speed to his feet. Darn her for invading his space. Darn her for invading his refuge.

CHAPTER FOUR

J
OSIE
WOKE
ON
Thursday morning to rain. She sat on her tiny veranda in the gaily patterned camp chair she’d bought on her trip into Gloucester yesterday, her hands curled around her morning coffee, and stared out into the greyness. Given half a chance she feared that greyness would invade her.

She dropped a hand to Molly’s head. ‘It doesn’t look like we’ll get a walk in today.’ That had been the plan—a big hike. Especially since Kent had assured her goannas weren’t ferocious carnivores.

The rain put paid to that.

She wondered if the rain affected Kent’s work. She wondered if he’d be home if she knocked at his back door with muffins this afternoon.

Was he even OK? She hadn’t clapped eyes on him since Tuesday afternoon. What if he’d fallen in some gully and broken his leg? What if a brown snake had bitten him? What if—?

Stop it! He’d lived at Eagle Reach for heaven only knew how many years. He wasn’t going to start breaking legs or getting bitten by snakes because she’d shown up. Besides, Molly would know if something was wrong. Josie glanced down at the dog and bit her lip. She would, wouldn’t she?

Face it. Kent just didn’t need people the way she did. Yesterday she’d sat in two different cafés in Gloucester’s main street, lapping up the noise and bustle along with her coffee. In a few days, when the isolation became too much, she’d do it again.

Not today, though. Today she’d start one of her craft projects—the embroidered cushion, or the latch-hook wall hanging, or the candle-making. Or she could finish reading the newspapers. She’d seized every available paper yesterday and wasn’t halfway through them yet. Or she could start reading one of the novels she’d bought. She’d bought six.

She drained her coffee and strode inside, determined to make a decision, but the drab bleakness of the cabin’s interior sucked all the energy out of her. It really was horrible. Ugly.

Yesterday, when she hadn’t found Kent home, she’d come back here, collapsed into a chair and stared at a wall until the dark had gathered about her and she couldn’t see her surroundings any more.

It had frightened her when she finally came back to herself. She didn’t want that happening again.

‘You know what, Molly?’ Molly’s tail thumped against the bare floorboards in instant response. ‘If I want to stay sane for the next month we’re going to have to spend today making this place fit to live in.’

She threw open her suitcase and rifled through its contents, searching for inspiration. Suddenly, she laughed. Sarongs! She’d packed her sarongs.

That was when she’d imagined cabins to mean pretty little cabanas set in lush gardens, encircling a lagoon-style swimming pool. Back when she’d pictured banana loungers and exotic drinks in coconut shells with colourful paper umbrellas sticking out of them at jaunty angles.

She’d pictured comfort and ease. Relaxation. Not bare, lonely landscapes that stretched as wide as the empty places inside her.

She pulled the sarongs out in a hasty rush then switched on her brand-new transistor radio. She tuned it to one of those ubiquitous radio stations that played cheerful, inane pop, twenty-four-seven. She’d push back the greyness. Somehow. And cheerful and inane would do very nicely at the moment, thank you.

* * *

‘OK.’ Josie pulled in a breath. ‘Are you ready for the big test?’

Molly wagged her tail.

Josie drank the last of her tea, crossed her fingers and leapt to her feet. She’d worked on the interior of the cabin for hours. Now came the test—to walk through the door and see if it still sucked the lifeblood from her.

Without giving herself any more time to think, Josie strode across the threshold and into the cabin. She held her breath and completed a slow circle. With a sigh of relief, almost a sob, she dropped to her knees and hugged Molly hard. ‘Now this is a place I can live in for the next month. What do you say?’

Molly’s answer was a wet lick up the side of her face. Laughing, Josie jumped up. OK, what to do for the rest of the day?

Her eyes fell on the notepad on the table. The what-am-I-going-to-do-with-the-rest-of-my-life-and-what-skills-do-I-have? notepad. Her heart dropped, her shoulders sagged. She gulped back a hard ball of panic.

‘Muffins.’ Her voice held a high edge that stopped Molly’s tail mid-wag. ‘Which would your master prefer, do you think? Date and walnut or apple and cinnamon?’

* * *

Kent swore when the knock sounded on his back door. He set down the chess piece he was carving and glanced at his watch. Two o’clock.

Four o’clock on Tuesday. Three o’clock yesterday. She wouldn’t last the week at this rate.

Good. He clenched his jaw. Josie Peterson was getting as pesky as a darn mosquito. And as persistent. He rubbed the back of his neck. He could always sneak out the front way. She’d never know.

No. She wasn’t chasing him out of his house. Another knock sounded. He gritted his teeth. She wasn’t worming her way into it either. The sooner he set the ground rules the easier the next month would be. He stormed to the back door and flung it open. As he expected, Josie stood there. The rain had stopped, the sun hadn’t come out, but her hair still gleamed like burnished sandalwood, which for some reason irritated him.

‘What?’ he barked. No pretence at friendliness, no pretence at politeness.

Josie’s face fell. He hardened his heart and hated himself for it.

‘I, umm...’ She moistened her lips. ‘I’ve been baking and I’ve made too much for one. It seems a shame to waste it all, though. I thought you might like some.’

The aroma of freshly baked muffins mingled with her fresh, fruity fragrance and ploughed straight into his gut. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d faced so much temptation. ‘You thought wrong,’ he snapped.

Strong. He had to stay strong.

Darn it! Those muffins looked good. Dangerously good. Just like her. He had a feeling he could get used to her cooking. If the truth be told, he had a feeling he could get used to her, and that couldn’t happen. He’d let her down. The way he’d let—

The gold flecks in her eyes suddenly flashed. ‘You didn’t mind the chocolate cake the other day.’ Her chin quivered when she stuck it out. ‘We had a very pleasant half an hour over that cake.’

Precisely. Which was why it wasn’t going to happen again. ‘Look, Ms Peterson—’

‘Josie.’

‘I am not your nursemaid. I am not your friend. I am the man you’ve rented a cabin from for a month and that’s as far as our association goes, got it?’

Her eyes widened at his bluntness. Her mouth worked. ‘Don’t you get lonely?’ she finally blurted out.

‘Nope.’ Not any more. Not most of the time anyway.

‘So how do you do it?’ She lifted the plate of muffins as if they could provide an answer. ‘How do you manage to live out here all on your own and not mind?’

He could see it wasn’t idle curiosity. She wanted to know. Needed to know, maybe. He supposed he’d started off much the same way she was now.

Not the searching out of human contact. He’d shunned that from the start. But he’d carved and whittled wood the way she baked. He’d kept himself busy with cattle and cabins and carving until the days had taken on a shape of their own.

So he didn’t need the likes of her coming around here now and disrupting it. Making him ache for things that couldn’t be.

She shook her head. ‘You can’t be human.’

He wished that were true.

‘We all need people.’

‘Believe me, some needy fly-by-night is not essential to my well-being.’

She paled at his words and he loathed himself all the more. His resolve started to waver and weaken. ‘What do you see happening between us?’ he snapped out. ‘You’ll be gone in a month.’ Probably less. That thought steeled his determination again.

‘Friends?’ she whispered.

He laughed, a harsh sound that scraped out of his throat leaving it raw. He had to get rid of her. She could capture a man with those sad, gold-flecked eyes and the soft curve of her lips. It’d all end in tears. Her tears. Then he’d really hate himself.

She took one step back, then another, her face white. ‘You are a piece of work, you know that?’

Yep. It wasn’t news to him. But Josie wasn’t cut out for all this. ‘Try the general store in Martin’s Gully.’ He nodded at the plate in her hand. ‘They might be interested in placing an order or two with you.’

Liz Perkins would take Josie under her ample, matronly wing. It’d do both of them the world of good. On that thought, he slammed the door in Josie’s face before guilt got the better of him and he hauled her inside and tried to make amends.

* * *

Josie stalked back to her cabin, quivering all over with outrage. She ranted in incoherent half-sentences to Molly.

‘Of all the arrogant assumptions! Needy fly-by-night? Who does he think he is?’

She slammed the plate to the kitchen bench and paced. Ha! At least she’d eradicated his grey presence from her cabin. Satisfaction shot through her when she surveyed the changes she’d made.

‘And he needn’t think I’m going to sit around here all afternoon and moon about it either.’

Molly whined and pushed her nose against Josie’s hand. Josie dropped to her knees and scratched Molly’s ears. ‘I’m sorry, girl. It’s not your fault. You’re lovely and loyal and sweet and too good for the likes of him. It’s not your fault you drew the short straw when it came to masters.’

Molly rolled onto her back and groaned with pleasure when Josie scratched her tummy. ‘You’re gorgeous and beautiful.’

Her fingers brushed the scar that zigzagged across Molly’s abdomen and she stilled. ‘I don’t get him at all.’ She meant to take his advice, though.

It took exactly twelve and a half minutes to reach the tiny township of Martin’s Gully. It wasn’t exactly a blink-and-miss town, but it wasn’t far from it. It had, at the most, two-dozen houses, though it boasted its own tiny wooden church. Completing the picture was a post office that, according to the sign in its window, opened two and a half days a week, and Perkins’ General Store.

Josie pushed through the door of the latter then waited for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. She blinked as the size of the interior came into focus. Bags of feed grain competed with tools for floor space on her left. Bolts of material lined the wall. On her right, shelves full of tinned food and every known grocery item arced away from her. Down the middle sat an old-fashioned freezer. The store smelt dry and dusty and good.

‘Can I help you?’ a thin, middle-aged woman hailed her from behind the counter at the rear of the room.

Someone with a smile. Josie hastened towards her. ‘Hi, I’m Josie Peterson. I’m staying at Eagle Reach for the next few weeks.’

‘Bridget Anderson.’ Her eyes narrowed as she shook Josie’s proffered hand. ‘Ain’t Eagle Reach Kent Black’s place?’

Josie nodded. She’d have thought everyone in Martin’s Gully would know everybody else’s business. Maybe Kent Black maintained an unfriendly distance with the folk in town too?

As if reading her mind, the other woman leaned in closer. ‘This is my sister’s store. I’m helping out for a bit.’

Another newcomer? Fellow feeling rushed through Josie.

‘Lizzie’s husband, Ted, died back in November.’

‘Oh, that’s awful.’

‘And she won’t have a word said against Kent Black.’

Really? Josie tried to stop her eyebrows from shooting straight up into her hairline. So, Kent had at least one friend in town, did he?

Bridget’s face darkened. ‘Me, on the other hand...’

‘He’s very solitary,’ Josie offered, she hoped tactfully.

Bridget snorted. ‘Downright unfriendly if you ask me.’

She recalled Kent’s black glare. Ooh, yes, she’d agree. Not that she had any intention of saying so, of course.

‘Though a body can understand it, what with all that tragedy in his past and all.’

‘Tragedy?’ The word slipped out before she could help it.

‘Aye. His father tried to murder the entire family in their beds as they slept. Set fire to the house in the wee hours of the morning. Kent was the only one that got out. It claimed his mother and sister, his father too.’

Josie’s jaw dropped. The room spun. She gripped the counter top for support. ‘That’s...that’s one of the most awful things I’ve ever heard.’

‘Aye. The father was a violent man, from all accounts.’

What accounts?

‘You wanna hear the worst of it?’

No, she didn’t. She’d heard enough. But she couldn’t move to shake her head. She’d frozen to a block of ice.

‘Kent had taken the mother and sister to live with him, to protect them. Didn’t work out, though, did it?’

Bile rose in Josie’s throat. No wonder Kent scowled and growled and hid away as he did. To lose his entire family in such an awful way.

She promptly forgave him every unfriendly scowl, each clipped word and all the times he’d turned away without so much as a backward glance. But was burying yourself away from the entire human race the answer? She remembered the way he’d tucked into her chocolate cake. She bet he was hungry for a whole lot more than flour and sugar.

Bridget opened her mouth to add what Josie imagined would be more lurid details, so she quickly peeled the lid off her container and held it out, hastily changing the subject. ‘I was wondering if there’d be a market for any home-baked goodies around here at all?’

Bridget’s nose quivered appreciatively. She reached in, seized a muffin and greedily devoured it. ‘Mmm... We can see how they go, love.’ She brushed crumbs off her fingers. ‘You never know what’ll happen once word gets around.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘But if you’re only here on holiday, what you doing cookin’?’

Josie gulped. She didn’t want to be the latest object of Bridget’s gossip. ‘It’s a hobby,’ she lied. ‘I wanted to try out some new recipes while I had the time, that’s all.’

Bridget helped herself to another muffin. ‘What are your other specialities?’

‘What do you think would sell well?’

‘Caramel slice, homemade shortbread, lemon meringue pie.’

She wondered if Bridget was merely reciting her own list of favourites.