First Comes Baby...: The Loner's Guarded Heart (22 page)

‘The church fête is on Sunday. We’re always looking for goodies to sell. Why don’t you make up a few batches of whatever you like and see how they go over?’

If Josie had ears like Molly they’d have immediately pricked forward. A church fête? This Sunday? That gave her something to do over the weekend. Time suddenly didn’t hang quite so heavily about her. ‘That sounds like fun.’

‘Lizzie and me, we’re manning our own stall. Would you like to join us, love?’

Would she what? ‘It sounds lovely.’

‘Have you ever made a Mars-bar slice? Give it a go,’ she advised when Josie shook her head. ‘It’ll be a real winner.’

Josie’s lips twitched as Bridget reached for a third muffin. From where she was standing, the feedback was already pretty positive. At this rate there wouldn’t be any muffins left for the rest of Martin’s Gully to sample.

That was OK. She’d bake more for Sunday.

But as she drove back to Eagle’s Reach it wasn’t church fêtes or muffin and slice recipes that wove through her mind, but the awful history Bridget had related about Kent. More than anything, she found herself wishing she could do something for him. Something more than chocolate cake.

CHAPTER FIVE

F
RIDAY
MORNING
J
OSIE
drove into Gloucester, stocked up on supplies and bought a recipe book.

Friday afternoon she and Molly went for a big walk. Kent was right. The trails leading down to the river really were very pretty. Not that she had a chance to tell him. She didn’t clap eyes on him.

Friday night she made toffee and rum balls.

Saturday morning she made muffins, caramel slice, a Mars-bar slice and cooked chocolate cake from scratch.

Saturday afternoon she found a tick at her waist.

She promptly sat, took a deep breath and tried to remember her first aid. She was an AIN, for heaven’s sake, an Assistant in Nursing. She gulped, but her mind went blank. Her kind of nursing hadn’t involved ticks. It had involved watching her father die.

She peeled back the waistband of her shorts and stared at the tick again. She must’ve picked it up on her walk yesterday. It wriggled. Ugh. She hastily folded the waistband back into place. What if there were more? What if she was covered in ticks?

The entire surface of her skin started to itch.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said out loud. But panic and adrenaline surged through her. Did adrenaline do anything to ticks? She gulped. It probably turned them into super-ticks or something.

‘Oh, get a grip.’

Molly whined and rested her head on Josie’s lap. Josie stared down at the trusting brown eyes and stiffened. What if Molly had ticks too? How did you get ticks off a dog? She surged to her feet. She’d have to ask Kent.

Josie was proud of herself for not racing as fast as she could for Kent’s back door and pounding on it with both fists. She made herself walk at an even pace, a quick even pace, and when she reached his door she raised her hand and knocked twice. A quick rat-tat.

His frown was the first thing she registered. She raised her hand before he could say something sharp and cutting. ‘I just want to ask a quick question, that’s all. It won’t take long, I swear.’

‘Well?’ he snapped when she paused.

‘What...what is the treatment for ticks?’

Kent stared at her for a moment. The dark blue eyes did strange things to her insides as they roamed across her face. With a smothered oath, he seized her elbow and pulled her inside.

‘Where?’ he demanded, letting her go and planting his hands on his hips.

‘Please check Molly first. She’s smaller than me and I hear ticks can do nasty things to dogs.’ Awful, terrible things like paralysis and...and worse.

‘They can do nasty things to humans too.’

When Josie folded her hands flat against her stomach and said nothing, he raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Molly will be fine. I give her a monthly tablet.’

Josie sagged. Relief pounded through her. ‘Thank heavens. I’d thought...’ The rest of her words dried up in her throat as Kent continued to stare at her.

‘Where is this tick?’

She had a sudden vision of his strong, tanned fingers on her flesh and her pulse started to pound. ‘If you, umm, just tell me what I should do I’ll take care of it. I don’t mean to put you out or anything.’

She didn’t think she wanted Kent touching her. She had a feeling it’d be a whole lot safer for her peace of mind if he didn’t. His lips twitched as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, and Josie’s heart hammered all the way into her throat and back again.

‘What you need to do, Josie, is point to the tick.’

Her name rolled off his tongue, thick and sweet like golden syrup. It turned her insides thick and syrupy too.

The twitch of his lips became a kind of half-grin. ‘Trust me.’ He waggled his fingers. ‘I’m a doctor.’

‘Yeah, right.’ The one thing she did trust was that he wholly enjoyed her discomfort. She remembered what Bridget had said the day before yesterday and surrendered with a sigh. ‘Here.’ She peeled back the waistband of her shorts to show him.

He crouched down beside her, his fingers gentle on her skin as he turned her towards the light. Then he leapt up, grabbed a jar of Vaseline from beneath the sink, crouched down beside her again and swiped a generous glob of the ointment across the tick’s body.

‘Vaseline?’ Her voice was breathy. She wondered if he felt the leap of her blood against his fingertips. Oh, boy. She’d known there were areas of her life she’d neglected in the last few months, but this was ridiculous.

‘Ticks breathe through their rear-ends. It can’t breathe through the Vaseline, so it’ll work its way out. Then I’ll pick it off with these.’ He held up a pair of tweezers. ‘It means there’s little chance of the head breaking off.’

She gulped. ‘Good.’ She didn’t want the tick leaving any of its body parts behind, thank you. She didn’t want to know what would happen if it did either.

‘Do you have any more?’

His words cut through a fog that seemed to have descended around her brain. ‘More ticks?’

His lips twitched again. ‘Yes.’

‘Oh, umm.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Spin for me.’

She did. His finger trailed across the bare flesh of her waist as she turned, making her suck in a breath.

‘All clear there, now sit.’ He pushed her into a kitchen chair. ‘Ticks, like most other living creatures, choose warm, protected places to live.’

‘Uh-huh.’ It was about as much as she could manage.

‘Like behind the ears and at the nape of the neck.’

He brushed her hair to one side and it was all she could do not to melt against him as his fingers moved across said areas. Up this close his heat buffeted her. As did his hot man scent, a combination of wood and wood smoke and freshly cut grass. She wanted to breathe him in and never stop.

Crazy thought. Nerves skittered through her. ‘Thank you for the tip about taking my muffins into the general store.’ She knew she was about to start babbling, but she needed to distract herself somehow and babbling seemed relatively innocuous, given the alternatives racing through her mind.

‘Did you meet Liz Perkins?’

She seized the question as a verbal lifeline and tried for all she was worth to erect some kind of metaphorical wall between them. ‘Umm, no.’

The metaphorical-wall thing wasn’t working. It did nothing to assuage the sensations that pounded through her when he swept her hair across the other side of her neck. She closed her eyes and bit back a groan.

‘Liz wasn’t there.’ Concentrate, she ordered herself. ‘I met her sister, Bridget.’

Kent’s humph told her exactly what he thought of Bridget.

She didn’t blame him. Not when she recalled how eager Bridget had been to impart her information. Guilt squirmed through her. She’d listened, hadn’t she?

‘I’m going to the church fête on Sunday,’ she rushed on quickly. ‘Tomorrow.’ Sunday was tomorrow, she reminded herself. Though, with Kent standing this close, she wouldn’t swear to it. She wouldn’t swear which way was up.

His fingers stilled. ‘Is that why you’re cooking up a storm?’

‘Uh-huh.’ How’d he know she was cooking up a storm?

‘The smells have been wafting up the hill,’ he said as if she’d asked the question out loud. His fingers moved across her neck again. ‘It smells good.’

‘What’s your favourite sweet treat?’ If he told her she’d make it for him. As a thank-you, nothing more. She certainly wouldn’t make the mistake of expecting him to share it or anything.

‘Why?’

She winced at the sudden harsh note in his voice. ‘No reason, just looking for inspiration,’ she lied. ‘Bridget asked me to make a Mars-bar slice.’

He finished checking her neck and she breathed a sigh of relief when he moved away, but only for a moment, as he almost immediately crouched down beside her to check the tick at her waist again.

‘It needs a couple more minutes.’

He moved off abruptly to a chair opposite, and, contrarily, Josie missed the warmth of his hands, the touch of his breath against her flesh.

His eyes narrowed on her face. ‘You feel OK? Any nausea or wooziness?’

‘No.’ Unbalanced by his touch, maybe, but she had a feeling that was not what he meant.

‘So, Bridget has roped you into all that baking?’

‘No.’ She lifted her chin. Not everyone found her company abhorrent. ‘She and Liz are manning a stall and I’m going to help.’

He gave a short laugh. ‘She’s an opportunist, that one. I’ll give her that.’

‘I wanted to do it.’ But then she recalled how Bridget had said more muffins would go down a treat, not to mention a chocolate cake. And that if Josie had time, maybe she could come by early and help them set up the trestle table for the stall too.

She shook her head impatiently. It didn’t matter. She wanted to help. It’d be fun. The knowing twist of his lips, though, irked her. ‘Are you going?’

‘Me? You’re joking, right?’

‘Why not?’ She lifted her hands. ‘This is a tiny community. You should support it.’

‘By letting the Bridgets of the town get their claws into me? No, thank you very much. I’ve far better things to do on a Sunday than be hounded into helping set up stalls and manning the chocolate wheel.’

Like what? she wanted to ask. She didn’t, though. She didn’t dare. ‘I think it’ll be fun. It’s not like you’d have to do anything. Just...’

‘Just what?’ he mocked.

‘Just take part,’ she snapped back.

Then wished she hadn’t as everything she’d found out about Kent yesterday rose up inside her. Her stomach burned acid. ‘You’re right. Bridget is a terrible gossip. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that she’s a bad person. And not everyone in Martin’s Gully is like that, surely?’

His eyes darkened and narrowed in on her in the space of a heartbeat.

Josie flushed and twisted her hands together. She knew precisely how guilty she looked. ‘Bridget told me what happened to your mother and sister,’ she blurted out.

Kent reared back as if her words had slapped him. His face paled. Dark red slashed his cheekbones. ‘She had no right—’

‘No, she didn’t,’ Josie hastily agreed. ‘No right at all.’ She wanted to reach out and touch him, but was too afraid to. ‘I’m sorry. What happened to them...’ She lifted her hands again. ‘It must’ve been the most awful thing in the world.’ His eyes glittered dangerously. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. She wanted to say so much more but didn’t have the words for it.

He stared at her as if he didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to say either.

His gaze dropped to her waist. ‘That tick should be ready to come out now.’

Before she was aware of it, he’d tweezered it out.

‘Thank you.’ Her breath hitched at his nearness. She rose and took a hasty step back. ‘Would you like me to bring you anything from the fête?’

‘Like?’

‘I don’t know.’ She had an awful feeling she was babbling again. ‘Maybe you have a secret yearning for Mrs Elwood’s tomato chutney or Mr Smith’s home-produced honey?’

‘There aren’t any Mrs Elwoods in Martin’s Gully.’

‘Any Mr Smiths?’

‘Several, but none of them are beekeepers.’

She edged towards his back door. ‘So, no tomato chutney or honey, then?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘OK.’ She practically fell down the back steps. ‘Goodnight, then.’

‘Josie.’

She turned back, her heart thumping.

‘I...’

She held her breath, but she hardly knew what she was waiting for.

‘You need to shower. You need to check under your arms and behind your knees. Anywhere a tick might get.’

‘OK.’ She waited but when he didn’t add anything else she gave a tiny wave then fled.

* * *

Josie left early the next morning. Kent knew because he watched. His lips drew back from his teeth in a grimace. So Bridget Anderson had roped Josie into setting up the stall, huh?

He remembered the way Josie had hugged Molly that first day. He remembered the feel of her curves pressed against him as she’d slid out of that tree and down his body. He shook his head and called himself every kind of idiot he could think of. Josie Peterson could look after herself. She wasn’t his responsibility.

‘Go check the cattle,’ he growled out loud. At least they were something he was responsible for.

Not that checking the cattle required much effort. More a case of checking the levels in the water troughs, checking the fences, making sure the steers hadn’t picked up an injury or were showing signs of disease.

Checking the cattle took less than an hour.

He wondered how Josie was finding the fête. He bet her goodies sold fast. He bet Bridget Anderson had her stuck behind that stall all day. He bet she wouldn’t even get a chance to buy a ticket in the chocolate wheel.

Josie would like the chocolate wheel.

For Pete’s sake! ‘Go clean the cabins.’

He grabbed the bucket of cleaning supplies and an ancient wooden broom. He averted his gaze as he stalked past Josie’s cabin. His nostrils flared, though, and he imagined, if he took a deep enough breath, her fresh, fruity fragrance would fill his lungs.

He held his breath and tried to banish her from his mind.

By lunchtime he’d finished cleaning the cabins. Every surface gleamed with fresh-scrubbed cleanliness. Just as they had before he’d started.

He averted his gaze as he stalked past her cabin again, but he remembered the way her eyes had filled with a soft light when she’d told him how sorry she was about his mother and sister. He couldn’t doubt her sincerity. He’d wanted to rage and stamp and throw things, but that soft light in her eyes had held him still.

Nobody in Martin’s Gully, not even Liz Perkins, had dared mention his past. He hadn’t encouraged them to. He hadn’t confided in a single soul. But they all knew what had happened and they skirted around the subject, skirted around him. Not Josie, though. He couldn’t help but admire her honesty, her guts.

Her generosity.

A generosity he didn’t doubt Bridget Anderson was taking advantage of right now.

He stowed away the broom and bucket then glanced around the kitchen. Darn it! He jammed his hat on his head and grabbed his car keys. He had a sudden craving for tomato chutney and honey. He refused to acknowledge any more than that.

Kent spotted Josie straight away, sitting all by herself at the far end of a row of trestle tables. Her hair gleamed, but her shoulders sagged. The rest of the town congregated on the opposite side of the field around a flatbed truck for the traditional auction. He bit back an oath, adjusted the brim of his hat and headed towards her.