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He sent up a prayer of thanks when she lowered her cases and turned. ‘Are you really? I suspect you’re merely sorry someone’s called you on whatever game it is you’ve been playing.’
Game? Game! He closed his eyes and reined in his temper. He couldn’t afford to alienate her further.
‘Please don’t take tales back to Russ that will cause him worry. He...he needs... He doesn’t need the stress.’
She stared at him. She had eyes the colour of sage. He briefly wondered if sage was the elusive ingredient he’d been searching for all morning, before shaking the thought away.
Jo tilted her chin and narrowed her eyes. ‘I don’t take anyone’s wellbeing or health for granted, Mac. Not any more. And—’
‘This is my life we’re talking about,’ he cut in. ‘Don’t I get any say in the matter?’
‘I’d treat you like an adult if you’d been acting like one.’
‘You can’t make that judgement based on five minutes’ acquaintance. I’ve been having a very bad day.’ He widened his stance. ‘What do I need to do to convince you that I am, in fact, neither depressed nor suicidal?’
He would not let her go worrying Russ with this. He would not be responsible for physically harming yet another person.
She folded her arms and stuck out a hip—a rather lush, curvaceous hip—and a pulse started up deep inside him.
‘What do you need to do to convince me? Oh, Mac, that’s going to take some doing.’
Her voice washed over him like warm honey. It was a warmth that didn’t sting.
For no reason at all his pulse kicked up a notch. He envied her vigour and conviction. She stalked up to him to peer into his face. To try to read his motives, he suspected. She was only an inch or two shorter than him, and she smelt like freshly baked bread. His mouth watered.
Then he recalled the look in her eyes when she’d recovered from her first sight of him and he angled the left side of his face away from her. Her horror hadn’t dissolved into pity—which was something, he supposed. It had been scorn. Her charge of selfishness had cut through to his very marrow, slicing through the hard shell of his guilt and anger.
‘Stay for a week,’ he found himself pleading.
His mouth twisted. Once upon a time he’d been able to wrap any woman around his little finger. He’d flash a slow smile or a cheeky grin and don the charm. He suspected that wouldn’t work on this woman. Not now. And not back then, when he’d still been pretty, either.
Mind you, it seemed he’d lost his charm at about the same time he’d lost his looks. Now he looked like a monster.
It doesn’t mean you have to act like one, though.
Her low laugh drizzled over him like the syrup for his Greek lemon cake.
‘I believe you’re serious...’
Yeah? Well, at the very least it’d buy Russ another week of rest and—
What the hell? This woman didn’t know him from Adam. She had no idea what he was capable of. He pulled himself upright—fully upright—and the stretch felt good.
‘Name your price.’
He wasn’t sure if it was more scorn or humour that flitted through her eyes. She straightened too, but he still had a good two inches on her. She could try and push him around all she wanted. He—
He grimaced. Yeah, well, if he didn’t want her worrying Russ she could push him around. Whoever happened to be bigger in this particular scenario didn’t make a scrap of difference.
He thrust out his chin. Still, he was bigger.
‘Name my price?’
He swallowed. She had a voice made for radio—a kind of solid-gold croon that would soothe any angry beast.
‘Well, for a start I’d want to see you exercising daily.’
It took a moment for the import of her words rather than their sound to reach him.
Risk being seen in public? No! He—
‘During daylight hours,’ she continued remorselessly. ‘You need vitamin D and to lose that awful pallor.’
‘You do know I’ve been ill, don’t you?’ he demanded. ‘That I’ve been in hospital?’
‘You haven’t been in hospital for months. Do you have any idea how much you’ve let yourself go? You used to have a strong, lean body and lovely broad shoulders.’
Which were still broader than hers. Though he didn’t point that out.
‘And you used to move with a lanky, easy saunter. Now...? Now you look about fifty.’
He glared. He was only forty.
‘And not a good fifty either. You look as if I could snap you in half.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘I wouldn’t advise you to try that.’
She blinked and something chased itself across her face, as if she’d suddenly realised he was a man—a living, breathing man—rather than a job or a problem she had to solve.
Not that it meant she fancied him or anything stupid like that. How could anyone fancy him now? But...
For the first time since the fire he suddenly felt like a living, breathing man.
‘If you want me to change my mind about you, Mac, I want to see you walk down to the beach and back every day. It’s all your own property, so you don’t need to be worried about bumping into strangers if you’re that jealous of your privacy.’
‘The beach is public land.’ He had neighbours who walked on it every day.
‘I didn’t say you had to walk along it—just down to it.’
‘The land that adjoins my property to the north—’ he gestured to the left ‘—is all national park.’ There’d be the occasional hiker.
‘So walk along that side of your land, then.’ She gestured to the right and then folded her arms. ‘I’m simply answering your question. If you find daily exercise too difficult, then I’ve probably made my point.’
He clenched his jaw, breathed in for the count of five and then unclenched it to ask, ‘What else?’
‘I’d like you to separate your work and sleep areas. A defined routine to your day will help me believe you have a handle on things. Hence a workspace that’s separate from your bedroom.’
He glared at her. ‘Fine—whatever. And...?’
‘I’d also want you to give up alcohol. Or at least drinking bourbon in your room on your own.’
She’d seen the bottle. Damn!
‘Finally, I’d want you to take your evening meal in the dining room with me.’
So she could keep an eye on him—assess his mental state. He could feel his nostrils flare as he dragged in a breath. He was tempted to tell her to go to hell, except...
Except he might have given up caring about himself, but he hadn’t given up caring about Russ. His brother might be eleven and a half years older than Mac, but they’d always been close. Russ had always looked out for him. The least Mac could do now was look out for Russ in whatever limited capacity he could. With Russ’s health so tenuous Mac couldn’t risk adding to his stress levels.
Jo’s phone rang. She pulled it from the back pocket of her jeans. He stared at that hip and something stirred inside him. And then desire hit him—hot and hard. He blinked. He turned away to hide the evidence, adjusting his jeans as he pretended an interest in the horizon.
What on earth...? He liked his women slim and compact, polished and poised. Jo Anderson might be poised, but as for the rest of it...
He dragged a hand back through his hair. There was no denying, though, that his body reacted to her like a bee to honey. He swallowed. It was probably to be expected, right? He’d been cooped up here away from all human contact for four months. This was just a natural male reaction to the female form.
‘I don’t know, Russ.’
That snapped him back.
‘Yeah...’ She flicked a glance in his direction. ‘I’ve seen him.’
Mac winced at her tone.
‘You have yourself a deal.’ He pitched his words low, so they wouldn’t carry down the phone to Russ, but they still came out savage. He couldn’t help it. He held up one finger. ‘Give me one week.’
‘Hmm... Well, he’s looking a little peaky—as if he’s had the flu or a tummy bug.’
He seized her free hand. Startled sage eyes met his. ‘Please,’ he whispered.
The softness and warmth of her hand seeped into him and almost made him groan, and then her hand tightened about his and his mouth went dry in a millisecond.
When she shook herself free of him a moment later he let out a breath he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding.
‘I expect it’s nothing that a bit of rest, gentle exercise, home-cooked food and sun won’t put to rights in a week or two.’
He closed his eyes and gave thanks.
‘Nah, I promise. I won’t take any risks. I’ll call a doctor in if he hasn’t picked up in a few days. Here—you want to talk to him?’
And before Mac could shake his head and back away he found the phone thrust out to him.
He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat and took it. ‘Hey, Russ, how you doing?’
‘Better than you, by the sounds of it. Though it explains why you haven’t answered my last two calls.’
He winced. ‘It’s all I’ve been able to do to keep up with my email.’ I’m sorry, bro. He hadn’t been good for anyone. Least of all his brother.
‘Well, you listen to Jo, okay? She’s got a good head on her shoulders.’
He glanced at said head and noticed how the wavy dark hair gleamed in the sun, and how cute little freckles sprinkled a path across the bridge of her nose. She had a rather cute nose. She cocked an eyebrow and he cleared his throat.
‘Will do,’ he forced himself to say.
‘Good. I want you in the best of health when I come to visit.’
He choked back a cough. Russ was coming to visit?
‘Give my love to Jo.’
With that, Russ hung up. Mac stared at Jo. ‘When is he coming to visit?’
She shrugged and plucked her phone from his fingers.
‘Why is he coming?’
‘Oh, that one’s easy. Because he loves you. He wants to see you before he goes under the knife.’ She met his gaze. ‘In case he doesn’t wake up after the operation.’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘Is it?’
‘Russ is going to be just fine!’ His brother didn’t need to exert himself in any fashion until he was a hundred per cent fit again.
She stared at him for a long moment. ‘Are you familiar with the Banjo Paterson poem “The Man From Snowy River”?’
Her question threw him. ‘Sure.’
‘Can you remember what comes after the first couple of lines? “There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around that the colt from old Regret had got away...”.’
‘“And had joined the wild bush horses—he was worth a thousand pound, So all the cracks had gathered to the fray”,’ he recited. His class had memorised that in the third grade.
‘Wild... Worth... Fray...’ she murmured in that honeyed liquid sunshine voice of hers.
‘Why?’
She shook herself. ‘No reason. Just an earworm.’
She seized her suitcases and strode back towards the house with them, and he couldn’t help feeling his fate had just been sealed by a poem.
And then it hit him.
Honey! The ingredient he’d been searching for was honey.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_8934e604-3133-58b3-a952-f630d3d46eb6)
JO TOOK A couple of deep breaths before spooning spaghetti and meatballs onto two plates. If Mac said something cutting about her efforts in the kitchen she’d—
She’d dump the contents of his plate in his lap?
