First Comes Baby...: The Loner's Guarded Heart (28 page)

And he would never give it up.

Stalemate.

Kent leaned across the table, took her chin in his hand and studied her face closely. ‘You’re pale. You need to rest. We’ll talk about this later.’

Josie wanted to laugh, not because she found it funny but because her heart was breaking and Kent’s concern over a mere chest infection seemed suddenly trivial.

Nevertheless, she made no murmur of protest, but climbed onto the sofa bed and buried her face in a pillow.

The minutes seemed like hours as she waited for Kent to finish washing the last of the dishes, to dry them then take the cake out of the oven when the timer rang. She could’ve groaned out loud when he started tidying the cabin. She sensed him hovering over her, but she refused to turn around, refused to unbury her face from the pillow.

Only when she heard him tiptoe out did she let the hot tears slide down her cheeks.

CHAPTER TEN

‘W
HY
WON
’
T
YOU
let me
invest in your b & b?’

It was Monday afternoon and Clancy had just left. Since yesterday, she and Kent had circled around each other very carefully—with the emphasis on the very. Super-polite. Extremely wary.

Josie didn’t know how she’d get through the next week if things remained like this. She didn’t know how she’d get through it if they didn’t. The one thing she did know—she didn’t want to have this conversation.

Kent straddled one of the hard chairs and folded his arms along its back. They bulged in his fitted T-shirt, each muscle clearly delineated in pale blue cotton. Josie curled herself into a corner of the sofa and tried not to drool. She might not want to have this conversation, but she didn’t want to stop ogling him either.

That probably made her a female chauvinist pig. She cleared her throat and dragged her gaze away from his tempting arms, his tempting lips. She doubted she could look at him and talk at the same time.

She hated confrontations. Wherever possible she avoided them. Kent’s body language, though, told her she wasn’t going to avoid this one. They could keep this pleasant and polite. She pulled in a breath. It didn’t have to descend into an argument or a fight.

‘Why are you refusing my money?’

‘I really appreciate your offer, Kent, but I’m not going to risk your money when I don’t know if I can pull this off.’

‘You’ll succeed. I know you will.’

His smile almost undid her. Of course they could keep this pleasant. They were adults, weren’t they?

‘If I invest in your project, I know I’ll get a good return for my money.’

She couldn’t let him go on thinking he could change her mind. ‘What do you want with more money? It’s not like you have anything to spend it on out here.’

His jaw dropped and she hated herself, but she ploughed on all the same. ‘What kind of input would you expect to have at Geraldine’s Gardens if you did invest, huh?’

‘None. All the business decisions would be yours.’

He meant it too. She could see that. A lump lodged in her throat and refused to budge. ‘I don’t want your charity,’ she finally managed.

He leaned forward. ‘Where will you get the money for the initial outlay, then?’

At least she could answer that. She’d lain awake last night pondering that exact same question. She forced her smile to widen. ‘From Marty and Frank. This is just the kind of project designed to bring us closer.’

They were family. They’d help. This scheme was perfect. She crossed her fingers and prayed she was right, because she had a feeling she’d need their support when she returned home. In more ways than one.

Kent leapt up, his chair crashing to the floor. ‘Marty and Frank!’

She hunched her shoulders up around her ears. What on earth...? They were supposed to be keeping this pleasant.

‘Are you mad?’

No, but he was. Hopping mad. And she didn’t get it. ‘They’re family. They’re who I should turn to.’ And if it all went to plan it’d be perfect.

Perfect except Kent wouldn’t be in her life.

He wouldn’t be in her life if he did invest in her b & b anyway, not in the way she wanted, so it was a moot point.

It didn’t feel like a moot point.

‘Do you seriously think they’ll help you?’

He stared at her the same way she’d stared at that tick as it had burrowed into her flesh. Her chin shot up, though her shoulders stayed hunched. ‘Why wouldn’t they?’

They would. Of course they would.

‘They sent you out here, didn’t they?’

‘Which just goes to show how thoughtful and—’

‘Garbage. It just goes to show how little they know you.’

She hated the thread of truth that wove its way through his words. She resisted it. Her brothers had sent her on this holiday because they knew she’d needed it.

‘For Pete’s sake,’ he glared at her, ‘this is your idea of the holiday from hell.’

Had been—past tense. She’d come back. To visit Clancy and Liz. She wouldn’t stay at Eagle Reach, though. She had a feeling she wouldn’t be welcome. ‘It’s turned out all right,’ she argued.

‘You got sick!’

‘That could’ve happened anywhere.’

He swung away, raked his hands through his hair then swung back. ‘You can’t trust them.’

She gaped at him. She couldn’t believe he’d just said that, couldn’t believe he’d try and dash all her hopes in one fell blow. They were the only hopes she had left.

She leapt up, trembling. ‘You don’t even know my brothers. You’ve spoken to Marty on the phone for all of two minutes and...’

A horrible thought struck her. ‘Unless you haven’t told me everything. Is there something I should know?’

What on earth could Marty have said to make Kent react like this? Her mouth went dry. For one craven moment she wished she could call that question back.

Kent stared at her. He rolled his shoulders then shoved his hands in his pockets and glanced away. ‘No.’

Her shoulders sagged until her thoughts caught up with her relief. You can’t trust them! ‘Then...’ Her mouth worked but for a moment no sound would come out. ‘Then you’re basing your assumption on what you know of me. You think they’ll take advantage of me, because I can’t look after myself. You think I can be manipulated just like that.’ She took two steps forward and clicked her fingers under his nose. ‘You don’t think I have a backbone.’ Which was why he would never love her.

‘You won’t get any arguments from me on that score.’

She swallowed back her sudden nausea and wished she’d never seen herself through his eyes. Frustration rose up and engulfed her in a red mist. She’d give him backbone! ‘Where on earth do you get off, lecturing me about backbone when you’re the one who’s burying himself out here in the back of beyond like some scared kid?’

The silence that echoed in the room after her hasty words made her take a step back. Oh, dear lord. She gulped. Then she hitched up her chin and held her ground. In for a penny... ‘I don’t care how responsible you think you are for your mother’s and sister’s deaths. You weren’t.’

‘Don’t you...’

He didn’t finish the sentence. He shoved a finger under her nose instead, but she batted it away. ‘You weren’t the one who lit the match and torched the house. You’re doing penance for a crime that’s not yours.’

His head snapped back. ‘It was my job to keep them safe.’

But even as his eyes blazed their fury, Josie saw the desolation in their depths. She had to bite her lip to keep from crying out.

‘I should’ve known what he’d do.’ The words wrenched out of him, harsh and merciless.

Josie wanted to cry. And she wanted to drag his head down to her shoulder and hold him. Neither would help, so she gulped back the impulses and glared at him. ‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘Why should you be gifted as a mind-reader when the rest of us aren’t? Why should you have known what he’d do when neither your mother nor sister guessed either?’

He blinked.

‘I know you’d have saved them if you could’ve. I know you’d swap places with them if you could. But you can’t.’

The lines around his mouth tightened, stark in the tanned lines of his face, then that colour too seemed to leach away, leaving him grey. Her heart ached so hard her knees threatened to buckle.

‘You blame yourself and hide out here because it’s easier than risking all and learning how to live again.’ Anger flashed in his eyes but, curiously, she wasn’t afraid of it. ‘So until you’re prepared to rejoin the land of the living, Kent Black, don’t lecture me about backbone.’

Then she had to sit.

His lip curled. ‘You can do what you damn well please, but don’t tell me how to live my life.’

The anger in his eyes chilled over with the iciness of his withdrawal and Josie hated it. ‘What? That’s a right you reserve for yourself, is it?’ She wanted him angry again. ‘Trust me, Josie, but don’t trust your brothers?’

If possible, his eyes became colder. She gave a shaky laugh. ‘You know as well as I do you should be out there being a doctor and saving what lives you can. It’s what you want to do, what you were born to do.’

She watched him close himself up, become the stranger she’d met on her first day here at Eagle Reach, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She had no words left with which to reach him. Except childish words like ‘Grow up’, or ‘Please love me’.

She couldn’t tell him she loved him. He’d hate that worst of all. She glanced up and met his gaze. ‘I’ll accept your help for my b & b if you go back to being a doctor.’

The pulse at his jaw worked. ‘No deal.’

Her heart slumped at his coldness. The last of her hope keeled over and died. She hadn’t helped him at all. She’d just raked up painful memories and made him relive them.

He was right not to love her.

But before she could apologise, find some way to make amends, Kent spun around and stalked out of the cabin. Even though Josie recovered more of her strength every day, she knew she’d never keep up with him.

Molly whined and poked her head out from her hidey-hole behind the sofa. ‘I screwed up, Molly,’ Josie sighed. Molly crept out and rested her head on Josie’s knee. ‘Not only will he never love me, but he’ll probably never speak to me again.’

So much for one final week of treasured memories. She had about as much hope of Kent kissing her again as she did of sprouting feathers and laying an egg.

* * *

Josie didn’t see Kent for the rest of the day. Or the next. Or the day after that either. She and Molly took short forays down to the river, where Josie sat on the bank and lifted her face to the sun, but it never seemed to penetrate to the chill around her heart. She skimmed stones and prayed for a glimpse of Kent.

The stones sank. Kent stayed away.

She’d return in time to have lunch with Clancy. And a game of dominoes. She baked in the afternoons, or read. She did the crossword. Alone.

She ate dinner with Liz, and as soon as Liz left she climbed into bed and pulled the covers over her head.

Was this what the rest of her life entailed—missing Kent? She tried to harden herself to it. During the days it almost worked.

At night the pretence fell away.

She didn’t notice the changing greens of the landscape any more, or the silver flash of the river. She didn’t see the fat, ice-cream whiteness of the clouds in the bright blue of the sky. Each day dawned grey, no matter how hard the sun shone.

On Thursday she returned from her walk with Molly to find a note pinned to her door. She recognised Kent’s strong, masculine scrawl and her stupid heart leapt. She snatched it up. Unfolded it.

‘Jacob Pengilly rang. Asked if you’d return his call.’

That was it. No Dear Josie. No Regards, Kent. Nothing.

Her stupid heart kept leaping about in her chest though, because it knew that this was the perfect excuse to go and see him. Clutching the note, she set off towards his house. She didn’t wait to pull in a breath before she knocked on his back screen door. She deliberately turned round to peer at the lush greenness of the forest beyond his back fence. Colour started to intrude itself on the periphery of her consciousness again.

She knew the exact moment he stood behind her because she could smell him. That unique combination of wood smoke and hot man. She closed her eyes and breathed him in before she turned. The screen door partially obscured him, thankfully. Her heart thump-thumped hard enough as it was.

‘Hi.’ She tried for a smile.

He didn’t return her greeting.

She lifted the note. ‘I got the message. Thank you.’

Still nothing. Not a word. Not even a flicker of recognition. Certainly no interest.

She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. ‘May I use your phone?’

She waited for him to tell her to go to blazes.

One...two...three fraught seconds went by. Just as she was about to give up and walk away, he pushed the screen door open. Josie, afraid he’d change his mind, squeezed past him in double-quick time then berated herself for not making more of it, for not slowing it down and relishing the brush of her breasts against his chest, her arm against his arm.

Kent, silent still, waved her towards the phone.

She made for it, stopped then spun back. ‘Are you all right?’ She marched back to peer up into his face. ‘Are you sick or anything?’

‘No, why?’

Because he was so darn silent, that was why. ‘No reason.’ She backed off towards the phone. It wasn’t a good idea to get too close to Kent. Whenever she did she found she wanted to plaster herself against the hot lines of his body.

Could you imagine the look on his face if she did? If she’d had a sense of humour left she’d have laughed.

He continued to stare at her and she shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen you around for a few days. It suddenly occurred to me that you might’ve caught whatever I had.’

‘Nope.’

‘That’s good.’ She edged closer to the phone, but wondered what he’d do if he did get sick. How long would it be before someone found him? She wanted to ask if he had a plan in case that happened, but she knew if she did he really would tell her to go to blazes. So she didn’t. She picked up the phone instead.

Then dropped the receiver back in the cradle. She’d so busily analysed the note for a clue to Kent she hadn’t given a moment’s thought to what it might mean.

More proof of an addled brain.

‘Something wrong?’

‘No.’ She bit her lip and stared at the note. ‘I just don’t know why Jacob would call me.’ Unless there was an emergency.

‘Who is he?’

‘A neighbour.’ She shook her head. ‘Actually he’s my neighbour’s son. The neighbour that fell ill, you remember?’

‘I remember. You had to call her.’ His lips lost some of their tightness. ‘Once I got you out of the clothes-line.’

‘He works in Brisbane now. Oh, I hope his mum is OK. I hope nothing has happened at Geraldine’s Gardens. I hope...’

If there was an emergency Marty or Frank would ring her, surely. Unless the emergency was about Marty or Frank!

With a muttered oath, Kent strode over. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’ He took the note and punched in the number scrawled along its base. ‘Ask him.’ He pushed the receiver into her hand.