‘Not lost.’ Her smile faltered for a second before she tried again. ‘I knocked at the farmhouse, but there was no answer. I looked for a shop, but you don’t seem to have one.’
Well, she’d certainly had a good nose around the place. Jack folded his arms across his chest, remembering belatedly that his shirt still fluttered from the tractor’s wing mirror. ‘This is a working farm, as you can see. We’re too busy to play bloody shopkeepers.’
Her eyes seemed to follow the motion of his arms, then skittered away as a ruddy blush brought roses to the pale cream of her cheeks. ‘Oh…um…I assumed you’d have one to sell your lavender. That’s why I’m here…to buy some, I mean.’ Her hand waved vaguely towards the field at his back.
Hot and tired, and with still several hours of work left to do, Jack felt the reins on his patience slip. ‘We already have a wholesaler we deal with, and I’m not in the market to change. Especially not to some random cold-caller who can’t be bothered to make an appointment first.’
Her face flushed, her embarrassment at his sharp words etched plain in her shocked gaze. Jack shrugged away his momentary discomfort. It was her own bloody fault for trespassing.
Her next words wound his frustration levels back up again. ‘Oh, I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. I’m not from a company, I was just looking to buy a few things for myself. I want to use it for making soap, scented candles, that kind of thing…’ Not even a company rep, then. Just some woman with a new hobby looking to buy a tenner’s worth of product—twenty quid, tops. He scowled. This conversation with her had cost him more than that in wasted time.
A sudden gust of wind tugged at the brim of her hat and she clapped a hand on top of it to hold it in place. ‘Well, I can see you’re busy…I’m sorry to have bothered you…’ The woman took a sidestep which placed her directly in the line of the sun, turning the diaphanous drapes of her skirt almost see-through. His attention strayed to the shapely curves of hip and thigh, then to the way the angle of her upraised arm strained the cotton of her blouse over her breasts. Who’d have thought so many secret delights lay beneath all those layers?
God, she’s lovely.
The thought completely blindsided him, and he faked a cough as an excuse to turn away from her. When he looked back, her eyes were fixed on him, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. That hesitant expression making it clear she hoped for some reassurance otherwise, but she had bothered him, and in ways he wasn’t ready to analyse. There was too much going on in his life, the last thing he needed was a distraction—not even one as pretty as this delicate beauty. It wasn’t like he was in a position to ask her out, or any other woman for that matter. The sorry state of his romantic life added another layer of frustration to his already frayed temper.
Jack rubbed his aching temples, wishing like hell he’d never got out of bed that morning. ‘If you’ve finished wasting my time, I assume you can find your own way back out?’
He was already striding away as more stuttered words of apology spilled from her lips, and he hunched his shoulders as though to ward off the guilty waves lashing him over such rude behaviour. It didn’t matter how attractive she was, after that display she’d likely run a mile if she ever laid eyes on him again.
Frustrated, hot, and overwhelmed by a sudden sense of longing for simpler days when his only responsibility was to stick in a hard day’s graft, Jack snatched his shirt from the mirror and thrust his arms into it, then grabbed his now-dry neckerchief and knotted it around his throat. He swung into the cab of the tractor and turned the key, wincing as the engine coughed, shuddered and rattled into an ominous silence. No, no, no, don’t do this. He tried again and the starter mechanism whirred, but didn’t catch.
Flinging himself back down to the ground, Jack stomped around to the side of the engine block and unlatched the cover. A hint of white caught his eye and he turned to watch the woman disappear around the corner of the hedge edging the field. He didn’t believe in karma, or any of those flights of superstitious fancy…but if he did, then the universe had just given him a serious kick in the arse for his behaviour towards her.
Covered in grease, dust and sweat, Jack finally parked the tractor in the rear yard. He was in such a foul mood he couldn’t even be bothered to uncouple the bowser and return it to its storage spot. He just stomped into the mud room and kicked off his boots. Turning the tap over the metal sink on with his elbow, he reached for a thick bar of soap and began to lather his filthy hands and lower arms under the stream of water. The tangy scent of the mass-produced soap stung his nostrils, and his mind strayed unwillingly to thoughts of the woman from earlier. He could picture her delicate little nose wrinkling at the overpowering smell, and—he gave himself a rueful sniff—not just from the bar in his hands.
She’d been too far away for him to catch a hint of her perfume, but he would bet his last pound on it being something as pretty and fresh as she’d looked. Something sweet and tempting—cherry blossom, or roses. One of the ideas he’d had for expanding the farm had been to turn the old, neglected vegetable patch they’d abandoned since his father’s death into a huge bed of roses. Good quality rose oil was in as high a demand as lavender, and the scruffy, weed-strewn patch was over half an acre. More than enough room for a trial area. If Jason had agreed to the plan they would’ve had their first batch of oil—something else the pretty soap-maker might have been interested in. Jack rolled his eyes; he was not in the market for tuppenny ha’penny deals, no matter how sweet her smile.
The inner door to the kitchen swung open, and Jack glanced over his shoulder at his mum. ‘Hello love.’ She greeted him with a smile. ‘You’re late tonight. I’ve stuck you a plate in the oven and Noah’s just finishing off his reading and that’s the last of his homework.’
Thank God she was there to pick up the slack. His weren’t the only plans that’d been thrown into chaos by Jason’s death. Their mum had wanted to take a back seat on the farm, had even talked about finding a little place to live down in the bay before setting her heart on the old farmworker’s cottage. All that had gone on hold for the foreseeable future, though. ‘Cheers, Mum. I’ve had a shit afternoon, not helped by some random woman swanning about the place thinking she can buy a couple of sprigs of lavender for some stupid bloody craft hobby, and then the tractor breaking down. I managed to get it going, but it doesn’t sound happy. If I can’t work out what the problem is tomorrow, we’ll have to get someone in.’ And that would cost a small fortune, no doubt. They had an annual budget set aside for repairs and maintenance, but still, it was another complication they could do without.
His mum gave him a sympathetic wince. ‘You look fed up. Get yourself showered and then eat your dinner, hopefully that’ll make you feel better.’
He nodded. ‘And I might treat myself to a cold beer, too.’
Her next words depressed him even more. ‘I don’t think there’s any in the fridge, but I’ll check.’
She turned aside, making room for Bastian to come wagging out of the kitchen to greet him with a cold nose shoved against the bare skin where Jack’s shirt still hung unbuttoned. Jack yelped and flicked his wet fingers at the dog. ‘Get off, you daft thing.’
His mum reappeared. ‘No beer, love, sorry. Why don’t you take this one for a walk down into town and treat yourself to a pint and a bit of company? You’ve hardly stopped for days and I can see to Noah for the rest of the evening.’ She closed the gap between them to cup his stubble-roughened cheek. ‘I’m worried about you, Jack. You need to take a break.’
His bad mood evaporated under the deep concern in her. ‘I’m all right, I promise.’ Stretching his legs after a long day cooped up in the tractor sounded like a bloody good idea, though. And just maybe he could find a pretty girl down