Two sisters still in full-time education, a grandmother who lived in her own make-believe world, and a house that sucked up every spare penny she earned working shifts in a dead-end job so that she could fit around them all.
‘You don’t like it?’ he asked.
‘No … Yes …’ It wasn’t that she didn’t like her name. ‘Sadly, it tends to rouse the infantile in the male, no matter how old they are.’
‘Men can be their own worst enemies,’ he admitted. Then said it again. ‘Lovage …’
This time he lingered over the name, testing it, giving it a deliciously soft lilt, making it sound very grown-up. And she discovered he didn’t need the smile to turn her bones to putty.
She reached for the door, needing something to hang on to.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
‘Fine,’ she snapped, telling herself to get a grip.
The man was trying to lumber her with a superannuated piece of junk. Or, worse, was a con artist distracting her while an accomplice—maybe Basil himself—slipped around the back of the house and made off with anything not nailed down. Well, good luck with that one. But, whatever he was up to, it was a cast-iron certainty that flirting was something that came to him as naturally as breathing. And she was being sucked in.
‘If that’s all?’ she enquired.
‘No, wait!’
She hesitated a second too long.
‘Right name. Tick. Right address. Tick—’
‘Annoying male, tick,’ she flashed back at him, determined to put an end to this. Whatever this was.
‘You may well be right,’ he agreed, amused rather than annoyed. Which was annoying. ‘But, while you might not know your Great-Uncle Basil, I think you’re going to have to accept that he knows you.’ He looked down at the envelope he was holding, then up at her. ‘Tell me, are you all named after herbs in your family?’
She opened her mouth, then, deciding not to go there, said, ‘Tell me, Mr McElroy, does she … it,’ she corrected herself, refusing to fall into the trap of thinking of the van as anything other than an inanimate object ‘does it go?’
‘I drove her here,’ he pointed out, the smile enticing, mouth-wateringly sexy. Confident that he’d got her. ‘I’ll take you for a spin in her so that I can talk you through her little eccentricities, if you like,’ he went on before she could complete her punchline, tell him to start it up and drive it away. ‘She’s a lovely old girl, but she has her moods.’
‘Oh, right. You’re telling me she’s a cranky old ice cream van.’
‘That’s a bit harsh.’ He leaned his shoulder against the door frame, totally relaxed, oblivious of the fact that the rose scrambling over the porch had dropped pink petals over his thick dark hair and on one of those broad shoulders. ‘Shall we say she’s an old ice cream van with bags of character?’
‘Let’s not,’ she replied, doing her best to get a grip of her tongue, her hormones, her senses, all of which were urging her to forget her problems, throw caution to the wind and, for once in her life, say yes instead of no. ‘I’m sorry, Mr McElroy—’
‘Sean—’
‘I’m sorry, Mr McElroy,’ she reiterated, refusing to be sidetracked, ‘but my mother told me never to take a ride with a stranger.’
A classic case of do as I say rather than do as I do, obviously. In similar circumstances, her mother wouldn’t have hesitated. She’d have grabbed the adventure and, jingle blaring, driven around the village scandalising the neighbours.
But, gorgeous though Sean McElroy undoubtedly was, she wasn’t about to make the same mistakes as her mother. And while he was still trying to get his head around the fact that she’d turned him down flat, she took a full step back and shut the door. Then she slipped the security chain into place, although whether it was to keep him out or herself in she couldn’t have said.
He didn’t move. His shadow was still clearly visible behind one of the stained glass panels that flanked the door and, realising that he might be able to see her pinned to the spot, her heart racing, she grabbed the rubber gloves and beat a hasty retreat to the safety of the kitchen.
Today was rapidly turning into a double scrub day and, back on her knees, she went at it with even more vigour, her pulse pounding in her ears as she waited for the bell to ring again.
It didn’t.
Regret warred with relief. It was a gorgeous May day and the thought of a spin in an ice cream van with a good-looking man called to everything young and frivolous locked up inside her. Everything she had never been. Even the scent of the lilac, wafting in through the kitchen door, seemed hell-bent on enticing her to abandon her responsibilities for an hour and have some fun.
She shook her head. Dangerous stuff, fun, and she attacked the floor with the brush, scrubbing at the already spotless quarry tiles, taking her frustration out on something inanimate while she tried to forget Sean McElroy’s blue eyes and concentrate on today’s problem. How to conjure two hundred and fifty pounds out of thin air to pay for Geli’s school trip to France.
There was nothing for it. She was going to have to bite the bullet and ask her boss for an extra shift.
Sean caught his breath.
He’d been having trouble with it ever since the door of Gable End had been thrown open to reveal Lovage Amery, cheeks flushed, dark hair escaping the elastic band struggling—and failing—to hold it out of a pair of huge hazel eyes.
Being a step up, she’d been on a level with him, which meant that her full, soft lips, a luscious figure oozing sex appeal, had been right in his face.
That she was totally oblivious of the effect created by all that unrestrained womanhood made it all the more enticing. All the more dangerous.
Furious as he was with Basil, he’d enjoyed the unexpected encounter and, while he was not fool enough to imagine he was irresistible, he thought that she’d been enjoying it, too. She’d certainly been giving as good as she got.
It was a long time since a woman had hit all the right buttons with quite that force and she hadn’t even been trying.
Maybe that was part of the attraction.
He’d caught her unawares and, unlike most women of his acquaintance, she hadn’t been wearing a mask, showing him what she thought he’d want to see.
Part of the attraction, all of the danger.
He’d as good as forgotten why he was there and the suddenness of her move had taken him by surprise. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been despatched quite so summarily by a woman but the rattle of the security chain going up had a finality about it that suggested ringing the doorbell again would be a waste of time.
He looked at the envelope Basil Amery had pushed through his door while he was in London, along with a note asking him to deliver it and Rosie to Lovage Amery.
He’d been furious. As if he didn’t have better things to do, but it was typical of the man to take advantage. Typical of him to disappear without explanation.
True, his irritation had evaporated when the door had opened but, while it was tempting to take advantage of the side gate, standing wide open, and follow up his encounter with the luscious Miss Amery, on this occasion he decided that discretion was the better part of valour.
It