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The air whooshed out of her lungs. ‘Oh!’ Her eyes searched his face. Given the circumstances, it wasn’t very flattering that he looked as if he were trying to digest something particularly bitter and unappetising.
She smiled distractedly at Liam, who opened his grubby little hand to offer her a smooth black stone. ‘Black,’ he explained patiently.
‘It’s his favourite colour,’ his father elaborated tersely.
‘Lovely, Liam.’ She smiled, pocketing the gift. ‘Thank you.’
She stiffened. Am I slow or what? How could I have forgotten a minor detail like the ring on his finger, especially when the physical proof of the wretched man’s unavailability is playing around my feet? What is wrong with me? I’ve had better kisses than that and not ended up with mush for a brain. It was a mistake to think about the kiss…stop hyperventilating, Flora.
‘Does your wife know you go around doing things because you want to?’ she enquired with icy derision. Her cold pose slipped. ‘I think you’re the most disgusting man I’ve ever met!’ she told him in a quivering voice.
The pain that swept across his face made Flora’s voice fade dramatically away. It occurred to her that she could never despise him half as much as he did himself.
‘My wife’s dead.’ His voice sounded the same way.
Flora didn’t know how to respond and he didn’t appear to expect her to.
‘I haven’t wanted to kiss a woman since…’ The harsh explanation emerged involuntarily.
Flora closed her eyes against a sudden rush of hot, emotional tears and wished he hadn’t told her that. She’d come out here to regain a bit of inner peace, not get mixed up with some moody, brooding type who was way too good-looking. He’d got a kid, and—hell!—even more unresolved angst than she had. He was the one that introduced the subject of self-preservation.
Flora’s heart ached as she watched them go, but she made no move to prevent them. She had troubles enough of her own without courting the extra ones a man like this one represented.
CHAPTER TWO
‘NIA didn’t say you were coming.’ Megan Jones handed her husband, who was sitting with his heavily plastered leg propped up on a footstool, a fresh cup of tea.
‘No.’ Josh helped himself to another slice of his brother’s mother-in-law’s excellent bara brith. ‘It was a spur of the moment thing.’
Megan Jones nodded understandingly. ‘You need a break; Nia says you work far too hard.’
‘Does she…?’ He suspected his sister-in-law said far too much entirely. The next statement from one of her brothers confirmed this suspicion.
The kitchen door swung open. ‘Nia says you need a woman, Josh. Like the haircut,’ he added. ‘Not so girly, makes you look nearly respectable.’
‘Geraint!’ his mother exclaimed, slapping her large, burly son’s hand as he filched a slice of cake and crammed it whole into his mouth. ‘Josh is respectable!’ She flashed Josh a worried look and was relieved to see her guest didn’t look offended by the slur. ‘And look what your boots are doing to my nice clean floor,’ she scolded her big son half-heartedly.
‘I’ll be back from Betws before milking, Mam,’ her grinning son promised unrepentantly. He winked at Josh and ruffled Liam’s hair before he departed just as speedily as he’d arrived.
‘Now there’s someone who is definitely working too hard,’ his mother announced with a worried frown.
‘I’ve told you I’d take on another man if we could afford it.’ Geraint’s father gritted his teeth in frustration. ‘You’d think with five sons there’d be more than one around the place when you need them,’ he complained.
‘Yes, well, I’m sure Josh doesn’t want to hear us grumbling,’ Megan said, pinning a bright smile on her face.
No wonder Megan was looking strained; Josh suspected that energetic Huw Jones was not an easy patient.
‘I don’t suppose there’s ever a good time to break your leg, Huw…?’
‘But some times are worse than others,’ Huw rumbled, ‘you’ve got it right there, boy.’
‘Where are you staying, Josh?’
‘I was hoping you could recommend somewhere nearby.’
‘You couldn’t do much better than The Panton,’ Huw responded. ‘Though it’ll cost you an arm and leg.’
‘The Panton, Huw, really!’ Megan chided indignantly. ‘Josh and Liam will stay with us, of course. Just like they always do. I miss having a child about the place.’ She smiled fondly at Liam.
Since Jake had married Nia, Josh, a keen climber, had joined his brother here at Bryn Goleu for several weekend climbing expeditions in the rugged Snowdonian mountains. Megan Jones’s hospitality was as warm as her smile.
‘I think you’ve got your hands full without extra guests right now, Megan. We wouldn’t dream of imposing.’ Josh saw his hostess looked inclined to press the issue and a workable compromise occurred to him. ‘I will stay, on one condition: you let me work for our board. I don’t know a cow from a sheep,’ he warned them with a grin, ‘but I’m a willing pair of hands.’ He held out his hands to demonstrate their willingness.
‘We wouldn’t dream…’ Megan began politely.
Huw put aside his newspaper. ‘What do you mean, woman? Of course we’d dream. Beside, a bit of honest sweat’ll do the boy a world of good, build up a bit of muscle.’
Josh took the scornful inference he was some sort of seven-stone weakling in his stride.
‘If you let him talk much longer, Josh, he’ll convince you you ought to be paying him for the privilege of letting you break your back!’ Megan threw her husband a withering glance, but Josh could see she felt just as relieved as the reluctant invalid. Their gratitude made him feel guilty because his offer of help wasn’t entirely altruistic. He hadn’t been able to believe his luck when Flora had named the village she was staying in as one a mere mile from the Jones farm—it suited him very well to stay for a while at Bryn Goleu.
Flora’s walking boots had never actually seen a puddle before; the country experience was proving a baptism by fire for her and them both. The boots seemed to be coping better with water than she had with the mouse in the house last night. Fortunately the village store stocked mousetraps, but Flora wasn’t sure which horrified her most: the idea of coming face to face with a live mouse or a dead one.
She consulted the map in her pocket; if she was reading it correctly this footpath would cut her return journey by half. It seemed to go directly through a farmyard. Right on cue a farmyard came into view around the bend. She’d heard tales that suggested all farmers weren’t exactly welcoming to ramblers; she hoped these natives, if she came across any, were friendly. Still, she reasoned, they couldn’t possibly be as bad as tabloid journalists.
She did see one—it was hard to miss him—a large, shirtless specimen wheeling a barrow piled with fencing posts out of one of the stone outbuildings. His back was turned to her; it suggested he would make short work of driving those heavy wooden posts into the ground. She tried not to stare too obviously at the sculpted power of those rippling, tightly packed muscles; she had limited success.
She cleared her throat to let him know she was there. ‘Good morning,’ she called out politely. The figure turned slowly.
‘Bore da, Flora.’ Josh exhausted the limit of his Welsh.
She must have walked into the shop and bought it all up, he decided, giving her a quick once-over from her sunlit hair to her shiny new boots. All the stylish, squeaky new clothes were top-of-the-range mountain gear which showed off her lovely long length of leg and neat, incredibly small waist. A light crop of freckles had emerged across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks were healthily flushed, whether from exertion or from the shock of seeing him he wasn’t quite sure…but he had his suspicions.
‘You!’ Flora, who had forgotten to breathe for several stupefied moments, took a deep noisy gulp to compensate.
‘It’s enough to make a man believe in coincidence,’ he drawled, lifting a hand to shade his eyes from the sun.
She nodded in a dazed sort of way. Looking at her with a clear-eyed sardonic grey gaze, he was displaying none of the awkwardness she, because of the way they’d parted, felt—he didn’t even seem surprised to see her. Willing her eyes not to make any detours over his naked torso, she kept them firmly trained on his face.
‘Or fate.’ Now why, she wondered with a silent groan, did I say that?
‘And do you?’ he enquired, unexpectedly expanding on the theme. ‘Believe in fate?’ He speared a pitchfork into the ground and leaned on it to casually watch her. Flora found the unblinking scrutiny uncomfortable.
Her curiosity reached boiling point and she succumbed to growing temptation and risked a quick, surreptitious peek at his leanly muscled chest and flat belly. Her stomach muscles did uncomfortable and worrying things. The earthy image hadn’t done anything to soothe her jangled nerves or hot cheeks.
It was the little details like the line of hair that disappeared like a directional arrow beneath the waistband of the worn blue jeans he wore that got her especially hot under the collar. She wondered what he’d make of it if she picked up the discarded plaid shirt she’d spotted and begged him to put it on—too much is what he’d make of it, she told herself derisively.
‘Fate!’ she hooted robustly. ‘Of course not.’ Her tone was laced with a shade of indignation. What sort of silly woman did he think she was? ‘You live here, then?’ She recalled he never had got around to telling her what he did for a living. He didn’t look much like her idea of a farmer, but then what did she, the ultimate townie, know?
‘No, just helping out for a few weeks.’
A casual farm labourer! This possibility seemed even more unlikely than the first option. She’d had him pegged as someone who, even if he didn’t give orders, definitely didn’t take them off anyone. To her there seemed something of the maverick about him.
Her own father had always been proud of his humble beginnings as the son of a coalminer and it struck her forcibly that he’d be ashamed if he knew his own daughter nurtured snobbish preconceptions about manual labourers. Just because a man used his muscles to earn a crust didn’t mean he didn’t have a brain, and if she needed proof she only had to look as far as this man. Those extraordinary eyes of his held a biting degree of intelligence.
If her friend’s reports were anything to go by, babies were expensive creatures, and most of those households who were frequently pleading poverty brought in two hefty professional salaries. This man had a child to bring up alone and, it seemed, no professional qualifications. Under the circumstances he couldn’t afford to be picky about work. It must be hard worrying about money and coping with parenthood, she reflected. He faced problems every day she couldn’t begin to understand; her soft heart swelled with empathy. It made her feel guilty when she considered her own comparative embarrassment of worldly riches.
‘Helping! Is that what you call it?’ A large young man with a lilting accent and a head of shocking red hair jeered as he came up behind Josh and thumped him good-naturedly on the back. ‘Slacking more like, man.’ He laughed. He looked with interest at Flora, his bold eyes admiring. ‘Fast worker, aren’t you?’ he added slyly to Josh in a soft voice.
Flora fell back on her frozen routine, but frustratingly neither man appeared to notice. Josh gave a tolerant, unembarrassed smile.
‘Geraint, this is Flora.’ He casually performed the introductions. ‘She’s staying in the village. Flora, this big bull is Geraint Jones.’
‘The heir apparent,’ Geraint told her, swaggering in an inoffensive way. ‘You going to actually do any work today, Josh?’ he added sarcastically, jumping into a tractor and revving up the engine. ‘See you later, cariad,’ he called to Flora. ‘And remember, if you want any real work done I’m your man,’ he boasted. ‘Now, if you want a bit of sissy painting…’ he taunted, driving noisily off.
It was similar to an encounter with a bulldozer. ‘Is he always so…?’
‘Always, but a bit more so when a beautiful woman is around.’
She’d been called beautiful so often it didn’t even register now, so why were her lower limbs suddenly afflicted by a debilitating weakness?
‘You paint? I mean, that’s your real trade?’ An idea, probably not a good one, was occurring to her. It would be foolish to blurt anything out before she’d considered the implications of her inspiration.
‘You could say that,’ Josh confirmed a shade cautiously.
Flora was so excited by the brilliance of her idea that she decided that she’d throw caution to the winds.
‘Well, I don’t know what your schedule’s like at the moment…?’
‘Flexible,’ he responded honestly.
‘Well, I might be able to put some work your way. My friend Claire,’ she explained hurriedly, ‘the one who is letting me use her cottage—she asked me to find someone to redecorate the small bedroom in the cottage while I’m here. It’s really dark and poky and she’s just had a baby…Emily…’ On anyone else Josh would have called that soft, fleeting little smile sentimental. ‘And she wants the room redone before she comes up at Christmas. If you’re interested…’
‘You’re offering me a job?’ He was looking at her oddly.
‘You wouldn’t be working for me,’ she informed him, anxious to make this point quite clear from the outset. ‘I’m only acting as an agent for Claire.’
‘Decorating a bedroom? You want me to decorate a bedroom?’
Flora glared. Was it such a revolutionary notion? Hadn’t he decorated a bedroom before? Anyone would think she’d said something funny. She hadn’t expected or wanted gratitude but he looked as though he was about to fall about laughing.
Maybe it was a male pride thing, she pondered. He might not like people, especially a woman, to know he was strapped for cash. She tried to see it from his point of view and had to concede it was possible she was coming over a bit lady bountiful.
‘If you’re too busy…’
‘Aren’t you afraid I’ll kiss you again?’
She didn’t see the question coming until it hit her dead centre; it completely threw her off balance. Aren’t you more afraid he won’t? the sly inner voice silkily suggested.
Taking a deep breath, she made emergency repairs on her shattered poise. Her slender shoulders lifted casually. ‘I hardly think that’s likely,’ she scoffed laughingly. ‘I’m aware it was just a…’
One dark brow quirked enquiringly as she searched for words. Flora flushed.
‘A momentary impulse,’ she choked resentfully.
‘Aberration, even,’ he agreed soothingly.
She frowned at him with irritation; she knew deliberate provocation when she heard it. She needed to knock this kissing thing on the head once and for all.
‘For your information, I’ve just broken up with my fiancé kissing isn’t on my agenda.’
‘Why did you do that?’
Flora looked at him blankly.
‘Break up with your fiancé, that is.’
Flora glared at him. ‘None of your damned business,’ she declared hotly.
‘Sorry,’ he sympathised with a patently false sincerity that set her teeth on edge. ‘Sensitive subject.’
‘Not at all sensitive!’ she snapped immediately. ‘Paul asked me to make a choice and I didn’t make the one he expected.’ Paul had been astonished when she had failed to see how imperative it was for her to distance herself from her disgraced father. His astonishment had eventually turned to anger at what he perceived as her selfishness. ‘Also,’ she added with feeling, ‘he was a prize prat!’
‘In fact,’ Josh drawled, his eyes on her mutinous, flushed face, ‘it was a normal, mutually amicable parting.’
‘I’m just trying to explain why kissing isn’t high on my agenda just now, so you can rest easy,’ she told him, regretting her outburst.
She couldn’t help recalling that kissing her had not exactly made him happy the first time, so he probably wouldn’t want to again. She remembered the bleak expression in his eyes as he’d made that extraordinary statement. If he really hadn’t kissed anyone for some time that meant he had a whole lot of sexual frustration to get rid of. She didn’t want to be his therapy. Although, she conceded, letting her eyes roam at will for one self-indulgent moment over his sleekly powerful body, there would be fringe benefits! It was almost enough to make a girl sorry she wasn’t into shallow and superficial relationships.
‘Ah, you’re afraid of the rebound thing…?’
Her teeth clenched. Was he jumping to all the wrong conclusions deliberately? She met his eyes—you bet he was, she concluded instantly. There was no mistaking the fact he was enjoying her discomfiture. He’d probably taken delight in depriving flies of their wings when he was a little boy.
‘There’s absolutely no prospect of me rebounding in your direction!’
‘You mean you don’t encourage the hired help to take liberties. This isn’t actually about being off men in general, just a particular category of men, for which read those without the fancy cars, fancy clothes and fancy salaries to match.’ His voice was coldly derisive.
He made her feel so guiltily defensive that she almost began searching her conscience until she realised that, whatever other faults she had, she had never judged people by their bank balances, although she knew plenty of people that did.
‘Are you implying I’m a snob?’
He considered the heated accusation. ‘I don’t know you well enough to imply anything—yet,’ he qualified.
Flora didn’t like that little contemplative smile that accompanied the qualification one little bit. For starters it made her pulse-rate do slightly scary things.
‘Do you want the job?’ she snapped, already regretting her silly altruism. The man had got by before she’d come along; it wasn’t as though he looked malnourished or anything—far from it!
Josh looped his thumbs in the loops of his waistband and looked thoughtful. ‘What’s it pay?’
