‘I called in sick. I just opened your message.’
Her friend sounded distant and Ellie felt that all-too-familiar clutch in her belly. ‘Are you okay now?’
‘Never better.’
‘So are you up to checking out that Healesville job with me sometime soon? We need to let them know—’
‘Ah, about that…’ A pause, then Sasha went into excitement mode with, ‘I met this great guy at a club last night. Anyway…’ she went on when Ellie didn’t reply, ‘I’ve got the chance to work onboard a cruise ship leaving Sydney in a week’s time.’
Disappointment ripped through Ellie. ‘I thought you said you were sick last night?’
‘Everyone chucks a sickie now and then, right?’
No. Not when it mattered they didn’t. ‘I was counting on you to show me the ropes at the bar last night.’
‘Oh. Sorry. Did you get the job, by the way?’
‘Let’s just say I’m not cut out for that sort of waitressing. Which is why this Healesville job is important to me.’ She closed her eyes, surrendered to the inevitable. ‘Sasha, obviously your heart’s not in this, so take the cruise job and forget Healesville.’ Forget everything.
The bed-and-breakfast place out of Melbourne was offering a four-week stint to landscape their garden, and Ellie had persuaded Sasha to come along. Ellie had explained that she didn’t want to let Belle down while she was away and had promised to get back to them by the end of next week. She intended winning the job, with or without Sasha.
‘Hey, you there, Ellie?’
‘I’m here.’
‘So…I’ll call you when I get back and maybe we can—’
‘There’s no point, Sasha, it’s just not practical. Good luck with everything. Goodbye.’ And have a nice life. She stabbed the disconnect button.
She’d thought they were friends. But true friends didn’t let each other down. When was she going to learn? Ellie had some kind of in-built radar that sent people running in the opposite direction.
Remember that when you think about Matt McGregor.
As befitting her mood, ten minutes later it started to spit—a cold, ugly, misty spit. Ellie pulled on her thin plastic poncho and continued digging. She would not quit on account of rain. Unlike Sasha, she’d prove herself reliable and responsible and accountable if it killed her.
Matt pulled himself mentally and physically out of his work. He glanced at his watch, surprised to find he’d worked through the lunch break he’d set himself. He’d intended talking Ellie into sharing a coffee. Stretching fingers cramped from working the keyboard, he wrapped them around his neck and glanced at the window. Rain spattered the glass.
He walked to the kitchen window and saw her. Mud splattered her overalls up to her knees. She was measuring and pouring pellets into her hand, sprinkling them over the earth, then moving on to repeat the procedure. The misty rain speckled the flimsy plastic she’d pulled on but the cap had blown off, leaving dark honey locks damp and curling over her head.
His gaze narrowed. Yesterday he’d raised the question of her responsibility. After all, it was she who’d labelled herself irresponsible. Was she now trying to prove a point? Responsible was all well and good, but there wasn’t much point to it if the woman came down with pneumonia.
He stalked to the back door, grabbing an umbrella from the coat stand on the way. Rain spattered his soft leather shoes. It wasn’t heavy but constant, and obviously had been for some time. But the wind was fierce—it snuck under the umbrella, threatening to turn it inside out.
She was facing away from him and didn’t hear his approach. Or was she choosing not to?
‘Why the hell are you still out here in this weather?’ He reached for her shoulder to swing her around but she squealed and jerked and he lost his footing in the slimy mud her digging had created. The umbrella was forgotten as he fought the inevitable and ignominious slide to the ground, taking her with him.
At the last second he managed to twist them both so that she landed on top of him in a blur of limbs and bad language. While he was still trying to catch his breath, he stared up at the rain-spattered sky, contemplating this example of life’s little jokes. Cold muddy moisture seeped through the back of his jumper, a striking contrast to the warm wet body plastered against his chest.
When she didn’t move, he raised his head and wheezed, ‘You all right?’
‘Oh, yeah, never better,’ she snapped. Apparently unconcerned that he might be on his last breath, her only movement was to disentangle her legs from his and tug on the strap of her overalls.
He would have laughed at the situation but what air was left in his lungs exploded out of him as her elbow jabbed him in the solar plexus.
‘Sorry.’ She twisted some more, the sound of plastic crinkling as she continued struggling to free herself. He didn’t try to help. Giving up the attempt for the moment, she glared down at him. ‘What were you thinking?’
Rain-spiked lashes blinked at him over those gorgeous lilac-coloured eyes. When he could breathe again, he smelled summer raspberries and her own brand of hot feminine scent. The scent a woman exudes after a healthy bout of exercise. Or sex. He took this unique opportunity to draw it in slowly.
What had she said? Something about thinking…‘I wasn’t.’ If he’d been thinking he’d have engineered this scenario somewhere dry—on Belle’s Persian rug in front of a roaring fire, for instance. Minus the wet clothing.
‘I was reacting,’ he continued, ‘to your hare-brained idea of working outdoors in these conditions.’
‘It’s where most gardening’s done.’ She rolled a shoulder, the movement shifting her breasts against his stomach. He wasn’t sure, but he imagined he could feel two stiff nipples jutting just above his navel.
A spear of heat shot through his body, angling straight to his groin. Doing his damnedest to ignore it, he stared up at the sky again and continued with, ‘So is this your attempt to prove you’re responsible or stubborn or both?’
Her hips chafed against his as she dragged a trapped hand from between their bodies to push at her crinkled hair. ‘What’s a little rain, for heaven’s sakes?’
His gaze shifted to her face. To her eyes, irises dark with some unnamed emotion she refused to admit to. Her mouth, damp with rain and a tempting whisper from his own. He could kiss her now, drink in the freshness of raindrops and Ellie. ‘For one thing, it’s wet. And damn cold.’
She stared back at him, shook her head. ‘You indoor career types are too soft.’
He didn’t feel soft. And if she didn’t quit squirming against him like that she was going to find that out for herself.
And bingo: She went completely still, and when he looked, her eyes had widened. He watched the colour intensify, her cheeks turn a shade pinker before she scrambled up on her knees and pushed away. Up. Pieces of her now-shredded plastic poncho flapped like flags in the wind.
‘Stubborn, then,’ he muttered. He pushed up too, his jumper peeling away from the mud with a slimy sound. An instant chill cloaked his body. ‘We’d better get out of these wet clothes.’
Without looking at him she picked up her trowel. ‘You go ahead, I need to clean up here first.’
‘Leave it, I’ll come out later and tidy up.’
‘My job, I’ll do it.’
‘Fine. Catch pneumonia.’
Without looking