‘For two hours now I’ve watched you struggle with that hinge in the cold and wind, and, whatever I think of your misguided stubbornness to prove a point, I’ve got to respect the fact that you didn’t give up trying. Let me put you out of your misery and mend the gate for you, then I promise I won’t bother you again.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘WHAT does it take to get through that thick skull of yours?’ Rowan heard herself demand. ‘I don’t want you to fix my gate. If I can’t fix it myself then I’d rather any other man in the world fixed it than you!’
The woman was even more stubborn than he’d thought. Evan knew he was mostly to blame for her current animosity towards him, but still he’d gone to her house with the best of intentions, and was it his fault if she refused to see that it made utter sense for him to fix her broken gate? She’d said she’d rather ‘any other man in the world’ fix it than him. Perhaps there wasn’t a husband or boyfriend around, then? There must be a good reason she was trying to repair the damn thing herself.
His green eyes narrowed with reluctant interest. In her floaty white dress of yesterday Rowan Hawkins had looked small and unbelievably slender. Today, in tight black jeans and a figure-hugging red sweater, Evan could see she had curves in plenty. His gaze was momentarily distracted by the angry rise and fall of her eye-catching breasts beneath her sweater and he cursed the inevitable reaction low in his groin. Despite his purely male response she really wasn’t his type at all. He liked his women taller and on the willowy side. He especially wasn’t attracted to women with that lost look in their pretty brown eyes, or women who thought it was an infringement of their human rights if a man so much as held a door open for them—never mind offered to mend broken gates.
‘Fine.’
Only it wasn’t fine. Not really. There was still the little matter of the creaking gate potentially keeping him awake for a second night in a row. The wind coming in off the sea was still fierce, and even now the damn thing was squeaking for all it was worth. If it carried on any longer he’d be fit to be tied. ‘Perhaps you could get your husband to fix it, then?’
Evan knew by the sudden shadows that crept into her eyes that he’d said the wrong thing. He’d deliberately baited her just for the hell of it. Oh, why hadn’t he just left well enough alone and walked away? He was the one who’d told her he wasn’t the neighbourly sort and now he was annoying himself with his dogged persistence in trying to win a response from her.
‘I don’t have a husband.’
‘Not the end of the world.’ Shrugging, Evan dug his hands into his jeans pockets, wondering how he could tactfully withdraw from the pain that was all too evident in her soft brown gaze. ‘You’re probably better off without one. I can’t say the married state is one I’d recommend.’
‘Really? Your cold cynicism can’t win you many friends, Mr Cameron. For your information, my husband was killed in a road accident. I loved him with all my heart and miss him like you can’t begin to imagine, so how do you figure that I’m better off without him?’
Her voice breaking on a sob, Rowan retreated, stricken, behind the solid wooden door with its peeling white paint and the sound of it slamming reverberated through Evan’s skull like cannon fire. For a long moment he simply didn’t move. Of all the crass, tactless, supremely stupid things that had ever come out of his mouth, his last comment to Rowan was probably the worst. Now not only did he loathe his own apparent inability to be even the smallest bit sensitive to a woman who was clearly in pain, but he also detested the unhappy knack he’d acquired in the past two years of distancing himself emotionally from the rest of the human race. Since Rebecca had done her worst it had been Evan’s safety valve, but now he despised himself for allowing it to become a habit.
He considered knocking on Rowan’s door again to apologise, but realised that under the circumstances she’d probably just tell him to go to hell. Too late, he was there already… He clicked his tongue and backtracked down the path to stare down at the offending gate with a rueful shake of his head.
An hour later he had it mended, new hinges and all. The curtain at one of Rowan’s front windows twitched slightly as Evan stood up, but he deliberately glanced away, stretching his arms high above his head to ease out the cramp in his muscles before gathering up his tools. He had no intention of waiting around for acknowledgement of what he’d done—not that he expected it. Instead, closing the gate smartly behind him with a satisfying click, he strode back down the path to his own house and headed straight for the television remote in the living-room. He’d drown out the painful self-recrimination tumbling around in his head with the athletics meet that the BBC were broadcasting and hopefully forget about everything else but the pursuit of athletic excellence and competing with the best.
Her fingers embedded in dough, Rowan paused in her energetic kneading to stare out the window at her poor, bedraggled garden. The grass was almost bald in places and in others it grew wild and free, vying with the weeds for precedence. She’d have to lay some new turf if she wanted a lawn, but first she needed to tackle those weeds and cut the wild grass down to a more manageable length. On a positive note, there was plenty to delight the eye as well. Little clumps of sunny primula and bunches of bright yellow daffodils swayed in the breeze, and there were even a few dainty bluebells stating their presence amongst the green.
What had possessed Evan Cameron to fix her creaking gate after everything she’d said? For the umpteenth time that afternoon, Rowan’s thoughts gravitated back to him. Had he felt guilty when she’d told him that her husband was dead? No. The man simply didn’t seem capable of such a human emotion. Clearly he just hadn’t been able to endure another night’s broken sleep, that was all. He’d simply been looking after his own interests when he’d decided to assume the role of odd-job man. Well, OK…as long as he didn’t expect her to be grateful. From now on she really would give him a wide berth and she certainly wouldn’t waste another one of her ‘annoyingly sunny’ smiles on him again, even if he begged her. Which, of course, he wouldn’t. A man who looked like Evan Cameron would never have to beg a woman for anything—that was if they were prepared to overlook the unrelenting chill in those fascinating green eyes of his. What was his story, she wondered. What had put the strain around that austere mouth? The tiny grooves in that otherwise smooth, almost olive skin of his? And why would a man like him want to bury himself in the depths of the countryside like some kind of hermit?
‘Think about something else, why don’t you?’ Incensed with herself for spending too much time dwelling on the man, Rowan pounded the innocent dough with more force than was strictly necessary. But there was great satisfaction in having an unexpected outlet for the rage that had been boiling inside her since Evan Cameron’s offensive remarks that morning. If the man were hanging off the edge of a cliff she wouldn’t raise one finger to help him. No. She’d just smile sweetly and wave goodbye. As far as Rowan was concerned, he could plummet into oblivion and good riddance!
Half an hour later, a steak and kidney pie simmering in the oven and the washing-up done and put away, Rowan returned to her living-room to sort through some old photographs. She’d been putting off the task since she moved into the cottage a month ago, but now there was no reason—except maybe fear—for her not doing it. She’d already decided there were too many pictures for her to keep, and anyway, why did she want reminders of what Greg had looked like? His beloved features were imprinted on her heart for always. Looking at photographs of happier times would only bring her pain, and it wasn’t as if she had children to keep them for. A pulse throbbed in her temple at the thought.
Settling the two old-fashioned biscuit tins side by side on the dark wood table, Rowan carefully prised off the lid of one of them, then, taking a deep, shuddering breath to steel herself, picked up a handful of photographs and studied them. Now, there was a man who had known how to smile. First picture she’d handled and there was Greg, grinning cheerfully into her camera, for once happy to be in front of the lens instead of behind it. It had been taken on a stolen day out at the seaside, and the pair of them had behaved like a couple of carefree children. Eating huge ice creams as they strolled along the promenade,