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“What if you needed to garden?” And didn’t that just make him picture her kneeling in the garden bed, her ass in the air?
“It was the middle of the summer.” She gathered her hair in a bunch and let it fall down her back. He followed the line of her upraised arms with his eyes. “The, um, grass doesn’t even need mowing. Because…it doesn’t get enough water. To grow.”
“That’s…logical.”
With difficulty, Rafe dragged his eyes back to the envelope. Opening it, he pulled out a handful of loose pieces of paper. “You must spend a lot on art supplies.”
“They’re not all from buying art supplies. I’m never sure what’s allowable and what isn’t, so just to be on the safe side, I keep every receipt I get.”
“O-kay. Every receipt?” he echoed faintly, feeling a sharp twinge in his stomach. He put the envelope down and opened his briefcase. He found that if he avoided looking at her, it was easier to concentrate.
“I’ll go through them with you,” Lexie said. “But first, I’ve got to take a load of stuff to the thrift store. I’ve got to declutter. I can’t think.”
“I’ll help,” Hetty volunteered, returning from the kitchen.
“Thanks, Mum.” Lexie abandoned the receipts, grabbed her purse from the table and headed for the front door. She yelled over her shoulder, “I’ll be back.”
Hetty took a seat at the table and gazed expectantly at Rafe. “What would you like me to do?”
Rafe scanned the slips of paper in his hand and shook his head. Lexie had put receipts from different years in the same envelope. “You could start sorting these by year.”
Murphy was doing the rounds of the living room, sniffing at every chair. Yin watched him through slitted green eyes from the arm of the couch. “Murphy, here.” The dog trotted over and lay at his feet under the table.
Hetty started separating the receipts into piles. “I don’t mind telling you the family has been worried about Lexie’s finances. Ever since she quit teaching to paint full-time she’s had trouble making ends meet. But she refuses to accept help. She says she made the decision to be an artist, and she’s willing to live with the consequences. It’s nice of you to come to her house and do this for her.”
“It’s my job.” He wondered if he should mention that Lexie would likely cop a fine. He felt bad about that—
Not his problem. Feeling sorry for the taxpayer was how he’d gotten into trouble over his last audit.
He heard Lexie return for another box. A moment later he heard her car start.
Rafe called up the spreadsheet onto the screen. He pulled a calculator out of his briefcase and began entering numbers. When he’d done all he could, he reached for an envelope and began sorting. There were receipts for the hairdresser (not deductible), art gallery entry (deductible), a car battery (debatable)—
“Do you live locally?” Hetty asked.
“Sassafras, up in the Dandenongs. But I’m booked into a bed and breakfast just down the road.”
“Myrna Bailey’s, right?” She waited for him to nod then went on, “Do you have family?”
Rafe suppressed a sigh. What was it about middle-aged women that they had to know everything about a person? That they couldn’t sit at the same table without making conversation. “My parents live in Western Victoria, in Horsham. I have a sister in Brisbane.”
“Do your parents farm?”
It was a natural enough question given the location but he hated answering it. His parents, Darryl and Ellen, had moved to the country years ago, after Darryl’s accident, because it was cheaper than the city. Rafe always wanted to explain that although his father was in a wheelchair, there’d been a time when he’d had bigger dreams.
“No, my father has a home-based business repairing clocks and watches.” He should go see them. It had been months since he’d last been out there.
Rafe continued sifting through Lexie’s receipts. He came across an application form for an artist’s society. He noted down the amount of annual dues and saw she’d filled in her birth date.
Before he could censor himself, he blurted, “Is Lexie really thirty-eight years old?”
“Yes,” Hetty said. “It was her birthday last month.”
Twelve years older than him. He’d figured she was older but not by that much.
“She looks a lot younger.”
“It’s the yoga and the meditation,” Hetty said. “Plus she has a naturally serene disposition. Nothing bothers her.”
“The portrait she’s painting is bothering her.”
“Well, yes,” Hetty conceded.
Rafe sat back in his chair, still staring at the year Lexie was born. She could have easily passed for thirty. If that was the result of meditation and yoga maybe he ought to take it up. Or not.
Twelve years.
He added the art society annual dues to the column. Afternoon sun shone through the crystals hanging from the window frame, making rainbows on his page of numbers. There seemed to be crystals everywhere in the house. He’d noticed them in the kitchen, too. From below the table, Murphy snored.
“Do you have a wife or girlfriend?” Hetty asked.
Rafe stifled another sigh. “Never married. No girlfriend at present.”
“You’re young yet,” she said comfortably. “There’s plenty of time to marry and have children.”
The other thing about middle-aged women was, they wanted to marry a guy off and tie him down with kids before he’d had a chance to enjoy life. What was up with that?
He stabbed at the keypad on his calculator. “How are you doing with the sorting?”
“Don’t you like kids?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said, you have plenty of time to marry and have kids,” Hetty recapped patiently, as she dealt out receipts like playing cards at a bridge game. “You didn’t reply. So then I asked, don’t you like children?”
How did she get child-hater from silence? There’d been nothing to say in response to her statement so he hadn’t bothered with meaningless chatter. “Kids are fine, I guess. As long as they’re other people’s.”
Tamsin, his ex-girlfriend, had made him gun-shy. They’d been together nearly a year when she’d gotten clucky. Then he’d discovered she’d “accidentally” forgotten to take her birth control pills and the huge fight that ensued had killed their relationship. Fortunately, she hadn’t got pregnant.
Feeling Hetty’s gaze on him, he could sense the questions forming in her mind. “I’ve got plans, okay? I’m not ready to get married or have children. Maybe in ten years I’ll think about it. But first I want to start my own fishing charter business.”
“That’s interesting,” she said, leaning forward, chin on her palm. “When are you going to do that?”
“Next year, if all goes well.” Then he pointedly began entering numbers into his calculator. He’d had enough soul baring for one day. And he’d jeopardize his job if he didn’t do this audit properly.
Hetty went back to sorting receipts. The only sound was the clicking of the keys as Rafe entered data.
After a few minutes her hands stilled. Out of the blue she said, “I’ve lost touch with my husband.” She stared at the receipts in her hand.
Fresh pain stabbed his stomach. Now she expected him to ask her questions. News flash! He wasn’t a woman. Hell. Why did she have to look so unhappy? “What happened?” he asked heavily.
“We grew apart when we weren’t looking,” she said, launching into what was sure to be a long-winded explanation. “We’d been up and down for six months or more, ever since we retired. Then I went away to Queensland for a yoga retreat. He didn’t like that. Now that I’m back, well, he doesn’t seem to need me anymore.”
She paused, apparently waiting for another response.
“Has he said he doesn’t need you?” Rafe asked gruffly. “Sometimes women read stuff into things that guys don’t mean.”
“No, but—”
“Did he tell you to leave?”
“I told you, I left him. I share the blame, I do.” She waved a veined hand weighted with silver rings. “But I’m ready to try again. Only he has a whole new life and there doesn’t seem to be any place in it for me.” Her large gray eyes swam with tears. “He doesn’t care if I’m here or not. He won’t talk to me, barely looks at me. Forty years of marriage and it’s over. I’m pretty sure there’s another woman. I don’t know what to do.”
Rafe just nodded. Why was she confiding in him? He was no marriage counselor.
“If I was your husband,” he improvised, hoping that a solution would shut her up. “I’d want you to prove you would never go away again before I took you back.”
Hetty blinked away moisture. “How can I do that?”
“By going home and staying put. By not running off to your daughter’s house. It takes time to win back trust.”
Hetty stared. “For a young man you’re very wise.”
She started sorting again. After ten minutes she put down the receipts. “He’s got to meet me halfway. Talk to me, for a start. Listen to how I feel.”
Rafe grunted. His calculator clicked steadily.
Hetty’s voice flowed on.
THE HOUSE WAS QUIET when Lexie entered an hour later. Odd. Her mother liked to chat. She’d thought Hetty would be talking Rafe’s ear off. Peering into the living room, she could see that Rafe was alone, his back to her, bent over the table. His computer sat idle.
She dropped her purse on the hall table and kicked off her shoes. “I’m back. Where’s Mum?”
He straightened and glanced over his shoulder, brushing a thick strand of black hair out of his eyes. “No idea. She said something but I wasn’t listening. I think she left.”
He was working on the skeleton clock. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up over forearms smattered with dark hair. His hands were well shaped, his long fingers delicately manipulating the inner workings with a tiny screwdriver and tweezers.
She sank into the chair next to him.
“I replaced a spring, tightened a few things.” He sat back. From the compartment at the bottom of the base he took the small key and inserted it into the keyhole. He turned it a few times and listened.
The clock started to tick.
Rafe grunted with satisfaction and glanced sideways at her.
Lexie’s eyes blurred. The clock wasn’t going to help her finish her portrait or do her taxes but it felt like the first thing that had gone right in days. Maybe weeks. “You did it.”
As if he’d fixed her life.
Without stopping to think she leaned over, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him.
CHAPTER FOUR
KISSING HIM was like touching her lips to a live electrical wire. A current flowed through her, lifting her off her chair and onto her feet. Rafe surged upward, too, his hands framing her face as he pressed his mouth to hers in a long breathless kiss. She slid her arms around his neck. He gathered her close, pressing hot kisses to her cheeks, her nose, her neck. Then his mouth found hers again and his tongue plunged inside, flooding her with heat and sensation…
Her hands slid down his shirtfront, pushing against his chest. “Stop,” she gasped.
Instantly, he released her, breathing hard, eyes wild. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Aghast, Lexie fled down the hall to her bedroom. She slammed the door shut and paced between the end of the bed and the closet. Rafe was a government tax accountant here to audit her, not to…to…
She breathed in deeply and slowly, taking the air all the way to her stomach. Then she let it out through her mouth. Normally that would calm her. Not quite.
Another breath. She would go back out there, act normally and not do anything dumb. Shoulders back and down, she opened the door.
Rafe was standing on the other side, fist raised to knock. Face-to-face. She stared. That mouth.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, the words tumbling out. “I don’t know what came over me. That was inappropriate. Please forget it ever happened. I’ll go out to my studio. Stay out of your way. I go a little crazy when I’m not working. Please don’t think anything of it.”
She paused for breath.
“What just happened out there?” He looked shell-shocked, as if he hadn’t taken in a word she’d said.
“That’s what I’m trying to explain,” she babbled. “I didn’t mean to kiss you. Well, obviously on one level I did. I’ve been thinking of it all day. And yesterday—”
“I’ve been thinking about nothing else.” His dazed eyes settled on her mouth. “I only know two things. I shouldn’t be doing this. And I don’t want to stop.” He kissed her again. “Tell me to stop.” His voice was low and rasping. Almost pleading.
Holding his gaze, she took his hands and settled them on her hips. The heat of his fingers burned through her thin cotton yoga pants. He drew her closer.
Rafe glided the tip of his tongue into the hollow behind her ear. His mouth moved over her neck, his breath warm against her skin.
“I don’t want you to stop.” Easing back, she met his hot dark eyes and melted. “I want to go to bed with you.”
He went still. Lexie felt every hair on her body stand on end. She held her breath.
“I should not be doing this,” he said again, stripping his shirt off. Underneath he wore a white T-shirt that accentuated his tanned shoulders and strapping chest.
If he was prey to her cougar, he was willing prey.
Her nerves jumping, she stepped back, pulling him toward her by his belt. Kissing him as he stumbled forward. Her breath got stuck somewhere between her throat and her chest as she worked his buckle.
And then he was shucking off his gray trousers and tossing them, along with his shirt. Lexie drank in the sight of him. Her last lover had been in his for ties with the beginnings of a paunch and a softening jawline. Although a hard body wasn’t everything, Rafe’s smooth skin, sculpted muscles and erection were just…wow.
She practically tore her clothes off, trembling with need, almost unable to stand. She pushed down his black boxers as he fumbled her bra off. He cupped her breasts in his hands, sucking hard on one nipple, as he slid her panties over her hips. They were both naked, pressing against each other, so hot she could swear she heard her skin sizzle against his.
“Oh, hell,” he groaned into her ear. His hands tightened. “I don’t have any condoms. Do you?”
“No. But I have an IUD.” She rested her fore head against his chest, breathing hard, praying they weren’t stopping now. “I’m healthy.” She glanced up, searching his eyes. “You?”
