She found out how hard as Luke pulled into the yard. Her increasingly urgent calls to Margaret had met with zero response as she tried frantically to detach the sleeve of her uniform from the stool. Not that her heart wasn’t playing Jai-alai at the thought of seeing Luke again, but …
Be careful what you wish for?
She had wanted to surprise Margaret with her frugal ways, but had not pictured accidentally stapling herself to the stool as a possible outcome. She could just imagine what Luke would say.
And …
Oh, good. He was peering through the window.
He had driven to the guest house the same way he rode a horse—flat out. He couldn’t wait to get back to Cornwall and hold Lucia in his arms to reassure her that anyone who tried to hurt her again would have to get past him first. His pulse had surged when he’d seen her at the window as he drove up. He’d expected she would get up and open the door for him, but instead she was just staring at him. And if he hadn’t known better he would have said that was alarm on her face. Even having raked his hair into some semblance of order, he reasoned he probably did look like a bandit.
‘I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’ he demanded, finding her alone in the room.
Luke looked so gloriously wolfish for a moment she couldn’t speak. She had never seen him looking this pumped off a polo field. ‘Welcome back,’ she said carefully. Remaining seated, she turned at an awkward angle to hide the fact that there was a stool attached to her arm.
‘What have you got there?’ Luke said, coming closer to investigate.
‘It’s an antique,’ she explained offhandedly, dragging in his warm, spicy scent, laced with a refreshing shot of bracing sea air.
‘An antique?’ Luke murmured, his lips pressing down attractively.
‘Yes …’ She met his assessing gaze with a challenging look, but she couldn’t read if Luke had learned anything in London from a stare that was brooding and amused. ‘I thought I’d restore the stool,’ she explained, clinging to something safe and mundane.
‘Do you mean you’re re-covering it?’ Luke glanced at the remains of the fabric strewn across the floor.
She was the one who needed recovering, Lucia concluded when Luke shocked her by giving her a hug.
‘Good job,’ he said, springing back.
‘What did you do that for?’ she gasped.
‘No particular reason,’ Luke insisted on his way out of the room.
She was instantly suspicious. The only time her brothers hugged her was when they were worried about her—if she had fallen off a horse, or something similar. It was their way of showing relief that she was okay, she supposed. So was Luke reassuring her that they could still be friends?
There was no point wishing for anything more, she told herself firmly as she returned to battle with the staples.
It was no use. They wouldn’t budge. She would just have to take her uniform off.
‘Margaret says the food is …’ Luke’s voice died as she dived behind the door.
Tired of greying white granny pants, she had treated herself to some new underwear in town—a gaudy display of shocking-pink lace to cheer her up when she was wearing work clothes. ‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ she pointed out, cheeks glowing red when Luke showed no sign of leaving.
‘Clearly …’
She held her breath while Luke and his sexy swagger finally returned to the kitchen.
‘What now?’ she exclaimed, feeling horribly caught out when he came back again.
‘For goodness’ sake, Lucia, I have seen you in a swimming costume before,’ he pointed out impatiently, advancing on her with a pair of pliers.
Agreed. Luke had seen her half-naked before—when she was about sixteen. And she had been wearing a bikini at the time, which was somehow different. ‘How did you know I was stuck to the stool?’
‘Is that a serious question?’
Having freed the stool, Luke set it aside. ‘Stick to what you do best in future. No one can do everything. Not even you, Lucia. Are there any more little jobs I can do for you before I go?’
Was that a serious question? ‘You’re going already?’