As Jai strode towards the small group, his keen gaze widened infinitesimally, and his steps faltered as soon as he recognised Willow, a tiny fragile figure dressed in black, with an eye-catching waterfall of strawberry-blond waves tumbling round her shoulders that highlighted bright green eyes and a lush pink mouth set in a heart-shaped face. The shy, skinny and awkward teenager, he registered in surprise, had turned into a ravishing beauty. His teeth clenched as he moved forward, inwardly censuring that last observation as inappropriate in the circumstances.
A lean hand closed over hers. ‘I apologise for my late arrival. My deepest condolences for your loss,’ Jai murmured softly.
‘Hi… I’m Shelley,’ her friend interrupted with a huge smile.
‘Jai…this is my friend, Shelley,’ Willow introduced hastily.
Jai grasped Shelley’s hand and murmured something polite.
‘Come back to the house with us,’ Willow urged him stiffly. ‘My father would’ve liked that.’
‘I don’t wish to intrude,’ Jai told her.
‘Dad wouldn’t see anyone while he was ill… It wasn’t personal,’ Willow told him chokily. ‘He was a very private man.’
‘Your dad was right eccentric,’ Shelley chimed in.
‘His desire for privacy must’ve made his illness harder for you to deal with,’ Jai remarked shrewdly. ‘No support. I know you have no family.’
‘But Willow does have friends,’ Shelley cut in warmly. ‘Like me.’
‘And I am sure she is very grateful for your support at such a difficult time,’ Jai responded smoothly.
That reminder of her isolation hit Willow hard. Losing her father, who had been her only parent since her mother had died when she was six, was already proving even tougher than she had envisaged. Worse still, the reality that they were stony broke, for those last months had broken her father’s heart and hastened his end. Evidently fantasising about leaving his daughter much better off than they had been, her father had, as his life had drawn to a close, begun using his pension fund to play with stocks and shares without seeming to grasp the risk that he was taking.
Convinced that he was onto a winning strategy, Brian Allerton had been devastated when he’d lost all his savings. He had spent his last months grieving for the mistake he had made and the truth that he was leaving his daughter virtually penniless. They were fortunate indeed that her father had arranged and settled the expenses of his own funeral as soon as he had appreciated that his condition was incurable. But only their landlord’s forbearance had kept a roof over their heads as they had inevitably fallen behind with the rent, and that was a debt that Willow was determined to somehow settle.
‘I’ll get by,’ she parried with a stiff little smile. ‘Dad and I were always alone.’
‘Let me give you a lift,’ Jai urged smoothly.
‘No, thank you. Our neighbour, Charlie, is waiting outside for us,’ she responded with a rueful smile that threatened to turn into a grimace.
Shelley, proclaiming that she would’ve enjoyed the opportunity to travel in a limousine, hurried after Willow in dismay as she turned on her heel to head out to the ancient car awaiting them beyond the cemetery wall. Willow, not having noticed her friend’s disappointment, was all of a silly flutter, and furious with herself, butterflies darting and dancing in her tummy and leaving her breathless as a schoolgirl simply because she had been talking to Jai. Any normal woman would have grown out of such immature behaviour by now, she told herself in mortification. Unfortunately, through living with and caring for her father and lack of opportunity, Willow hadn’t yet managed to gain much real-world experience of the opposite sex.
Aside of a couple of summer residential stays, she had always lived at home, having studied garden design both online and through classes at the nearest college. Add in the work experience she had had to complete with a local landscape firm, the need to earn some money simply to eat while they had steadily fallen behind with the rent, the demands of her father’s illness and his many medical appointments, and there hadn’t been enough hours in the day for Willow to enjoy a social life with her friends as well. Gradually most of her friends had dropped away, but Shelley had been in her life since primary school and had continued to visit, oblivious to Brian Allerton’s cool, snobbish attitude to her.
Willow arrived back at the tiny terraced house and she put on the kettle while Shelley set out the drinks and a solitary tray of shortbread. Just as Jai arrived, the vicar anxiously asked Willow where she was planning to move to.
‘My sofa!’ Shelley revealed with a chuckle. ‘I wouldn’t leave her stuck.’
‘Yes, I’ll be fine with Shelley until I can organise something more permanent. I have to move out of here tomorrow. The landlord has been wonderfully understanding but it would be selfish of me to stay here one day longer than necessary,’ Willow explained, thinking that, tough though the last weeks had been, she had met with kindness in unexpected places.
A sofa? Willow was homeless? Expected to pack up and move in with a friend the same week that she had buried her father? Jai was appalled at that news. Honour demanded that he intervene but Willow had been raised to be proud and independent like her father and Jai would have to be sensitive in his approach. He was convinced that out of principle Willow would refuse his financial assistance.
‘Coffee, Jai?’ Willow prompted as she handed the vicar a cup of tea.
‘Thank you,’ he murmured, following her into the small kitchen to say, ‘Was your father at home at the end, or had he been moved to a hospice?’
‘It was to happen next week,’ Willow conceded tightly, throwing his tall dark figure a rueful appraisal, her heart giving a sudden thud as she collided involuntarily with ice-blue eyes enhanced by wondrously dense black lashes. ‘But he didn’t make it. His heart gave out.’
In an abrupt movement, she stepped back from him, disturbingly conscious of his height and the proximity of more masculinity than she felt able to bear. The very faint scent of some designer cologne drifted into her nostrils and she sucked in a sudden steadying breath, her level of awareness heightening exponentially to add to her discomfiture. She could feel her face heating, her knees wobbling as her tension rose even higher.
‘What are you planning to do next?’ Jai enquired, shifting his attention hurriedly from her lush pink lips and the X-rated images bombarding him while he questioned his behaviour.
Yes, she was indisputably beautiful, but he was neither a hormonal schoolboy, nor a sex-starved one, and he was challenged to explain his lack of self-discipline in her radius. She did, however, possess a quality that was exclusively her own, he acknowledged grudgingly, a slow-burning sensual appeal that tugged hard at his senses. It was there in the flicker of her languorous emerald eyes, the slight curve of her generous lower lip, the upward angle of challenge in her chin as she tilted her head back, strawberry-blond hair falling in waves tumbling across her slim shoulders like a swathe of rumpled silk.
‘I’ll be fine as soon as I find full-time work. These last weeks, I was only able to work part-time hours. Once I’ve saved up some money, I’ll move on and leave Shelley in peace.’ She opened the fridge to extract milk and Jai noticed its empty interior.
‘You