Too Much of a Good Thing?. Joss Wood

not just as someone he wanted to get into bed.

      ‘Why don’t you try being friends with a woman instead?’

      Kelby’s words from last week kept popping in and out of his head, quickly followed by a flash of Lu’s freckled face, her sea-coloured eyes. For the first time in for ever he could see himself being friends with a woman—being friends with Lu. Sure, he was attracted to her. But from the little he’d seen of her he really liked her as well. She seemed unconcerned about who he was and what he did.

      She was, he decided, refreshing.

      He was in a new country, trying out a new type of job. Maybe he should try something different when it came to the opposite sex too.

      Will felt himself relaxing as her gate rolled open and he steered the SUV up the long driveway. A change is as good as a holiday, he thought, pulling to a stop.

      Then why did his heart thump when he saw her standing by the open front door, dressed in a similar outfit to the one she’d changed into in his hotel room—a pair of white cotton shorts and a teal tank top with thin straps that showed off an inch of her flat belly? He lifted his hand as he left the car and patted two dogs of indeterminate breed, sliding a hot glance at those long, tanned legs and bare feet tipped with fire red toenails.

      Friends. New approach. Don’t let your libido distract you. It had, as he well remembered, led him into far too much trouble before.

      ‘Hi.’ Lu lifted her glass. ‘I started without you. Want one?’

      ‘Hi, back.’ Will waved the bottle he held in his hand as he walked up the two stone steps to the door. He brushed past a pot plant and his nose was filled with the scent of sweet lemons. The bigger of the dogs nudged his hand and Lu grinned. ‘Harry, stop it!’

      ‘Harry?’

      ‘Potter’s behind you. The cat’s are Dumbel and Dore.’

      Nice place, Will thought as he stepped into a huge hall and Lu closed the door behind him. She took the bottle he held out. He searched her face, happy to see some colour in her cheeks, less blue under her eyes. Lu dropped her eyes from his and Will looked around. A coat rack stood next to the door and a large antique credenza squatted next to the wall, photographs in silver frames crowding its surface. A massive vase of haphazard flowers stood on a narrow high table, and the wall in front of him was dominated by two oversized canvas photographs of two young boys, their faces a chocolate smear.

      ‘My brothers,’ Lu explained as he stepped up to look at the photographs. ‘Come through this way. I thought we’d eat on the veranda.’

      Will followed Lu through a huge kitchen and his mouth started to water at the smell of garlicky, herby, meaty pasta. The kitchen flowed into a large, messy lounge with battered leather couches, a laptop on a big coffee table and a large screen television. Oversized glass and wooden doors led onto a wraparound veranda, which had its own set of couches, a casual dining table and an incredible view over the city to the Indian Ocean.