She shook hands. His were work-roughened, but warm. She glanced down, mesmerised by how large and brown his hand was wrapped around her skinny pale fingers. And it was then that she noticed he had a hint of dirt beneath his fingernails.
Of course there was dirt. He was a farmer. Not a city guy. Not a straightforward man looking for a wife to accompany him to work dinners, to get his parents off his back, or to marry quickly to get himself lined up for that work partnership, which was what she figured would bring a man around to her plan. So what on earth was she doing still hanging onto the poor guy’s hand?
She let go, and quick, running her hand down the side of her jeans to rub away the tingles. She sat, and her wobbly knees thanked her.
Having broken the ice enough times already that fortnight, she knew how. But while with the others she’d wanted to get down to brass tacks, to lay out the ground rules and find out their motives before even bothering with small talk, with this guy, with this long, lean length of pure and unadulterated gorgeousness, it felt ridiculous forming the question: why do you want to marry me?
Instead she caved and settled on, ‘You found this place okay?’
‘I did. I drove here directly from the farm and found it a lot sooner than I had expected to.’
‘But I just saw you come in the front door.’
A knowing smile in his eyes lit brighter, and she bit her lip. Jodie felt her horrid blush threatening again, so she turned her eyes determinedly to the residual drops of wine in her glass. Red wine, which would only make her feel warmer. She pushed it out of reach behind the tray of bread rolls.
‘I’ve been walking the streets of Melbourne for an hour and a half,’ he explained. ‘I’m not terribly good at sitting on my hands, and the last thing I wanted to do was wait and have you not show. And now I’m here, I’m really glad you did. Show.’
‘I take it I’m not your first blind date,’ Jodie said, the unstoppable blotchy blush heating her face another degree.
‘Well, actually, no,’ he said, a slight hint of pink warming his tanned neck too. She was hard pressed not to sigh. ‘And though in the past they have been mostly disastrous, I figured I would try one more time just to find out what the heck mascarpone is.’
She blinked. ‘Mascarpone?’
‘On your website it said that you lived for it. I knew I couldn’t go any further without knowing.’
‘Oh. Right. Well, it’s a type of Italian cream cheese. In my opinion, a sandwich is simply not a sandwich without mascarpone to hold it all together.’
‘Okay, then.’ He blinked a few times as he let the info settle and then he laid a huge grin on her. ‘I guess I can now go on.’
After the previous candidates, this guy wasn’t just a honey to look at, he was polite and nice and saying all the right things. She would be hard pressed to find better. Maybe he was the one.
She flinched so hard at that thought that her elbow slid off the table. Heath even lifted himself off the chair and reached out a hand to her to make sure she was okay. Thankfully at that moment a waitress came over with Heath’s beer and another glass of red wine for Jodie so she was saved from extended humiliation.
‘So, you’re English,’ he said once the waitress left.
Feeling more than a little off kilter, Jodie wrapped her fingers around the stem of her wineglass. ‘Is that a concern?’
‘No, not at all. It’s just that from the few details on your website I had sort of built up an image of how you would sound, how tall you’d be, that sort of thing.’
Jodie felt herself deflating with every word he spoke. She’d spent years being told by her mother that if only she were taller and not quite so pale she might be pretty. To hear this guy say the same would seal it for sure. ‘So how am I different?’ she asked, being as she was a glutton for punishment.
Heath blinked, his eye crinkles deepening, as though giving himself a moment to tie all of the pieces in his imagination into a new whole.
‘You’re smaller somehow. More delicate. And I can’t get over that plummy accent.’
Jodie bit at her inner lip, wishing, and not for the first time, that she were a blonde glamazon like Lisa. Or a brunette sex kitten like Mandy. Or serenely elegant like her half-sister Louise. Not wan, wispy, little old her.
‘Sorry to disappoint,’ she said.
‘Not at all,’ he said, resting contentedly against the back of his chair as his eyes remained locked onto hers. ‘You’re lovely.’
Oh, my…Jodie fought the sudden urge to tell him he was lovely right back. But this wasn’t the place, or the time, or the point. She was looking for someone kind, nice, unassuming, and Australian. And added extras along the lines of handsome, charming, and sexy as hell would only complicate things.
‘And so are your earrings,’ Heath said, catching her unawares by reaching out a curled hand towards her cheek, but stopping a foot from her face and letting his hand drop to the table.
Jodie blinked in surprise. The mere thought of those hands brushing against her ear had robbed her of the power of speech.
Her choice of earrings had been her biggest one of the night. Which of the dozen she had created in a mad productive spurt ought she to choose? Vibrant red glo-mesh ones shaped like tulips? Rows of tiny jade-green beads that hung like weeping willow branches to her shoulders? Or a delicate pair made of wires twisted into the shape of tiny roses? How did one pick earrings fancy enough to ensnare a husband?
She had settled on the green beads. The roses were more suited to Louise, and one of Mandy’s workmates would love the red glo-mesh and had offered to pay a hundred dollars cash for anything Jodie could promise was a one-off. Decision made!
‘Thanks,’ she said, her voice sounding as though she’d just smoked a packet of cigarettes. ‘I make them myself. My styles are based on flowers I used to find at the Chelsea Gardens as a little girl.’
Shut-up, Jodie! He said he liked them, not that he wanted to buy a pair. But he liked them? Oh, no, he wasn’t…was he? She’d already met one of those the night before. And that was all well and good, but if this man was permanently unavailable to all women, that would be a nasty cosmic joke.
‘They’re…nice,’ he said, sticking out his bottom lip and nodding.
And in a blinding flash of relief Jodie realised he was being nice. If he’d said her earrings were fabulous she ought to have been worried. But nice? That just meant Heath was a guy paying a girl a compliment.
‘Now tell me about your work,’ she said, wholeheartedly moving on. Jodie was simply not used to talking about herself. She didn’t even really know enough about herself to be sure what she said was the truth. ‘I gather you are some sort of cowboy, throwing hay bales and milking cows all day?’
Cowboy? Where had that come from? Even she heard the note of flirtation in her voice and so it wasn’t such a shock when his blue eyes glittered.
‘So who’s looking after your cows while you’re away?’ she asked, keeping her voice neat and even.
He ran a lean hand beneath his mouth. Then he looked up at her from beneath a sweep of thick chestnut eyelashes, which were superior to hers even with the modern marvel of long-lash mascara at her disposal. ‘I have a station manager, Andy, who runs the place in my absence, as well as numerous seasonal staff who do most of the heavy labour. So apart from throwing hay bales about the place, I am also a qualified civil engineer.’
Oh! So maybe the whole ‘outback farmer’ thing had just been a means to an introduction, a hook, a way to get a girl interested. Maybe he lived in town in a nice big house big enough for her and Louise and for Lisa and Mandy to crash after a girls’