Sienna stared at it. What was she doing? Coffee was still the last thing she wanted. Reaching to put the mug back in the cupboard, she knocked against the shelf and gasped as pain tore through her ribs. The mug slid from her fingers and shattered on the tile floor. Sweat beaded on her forehead.
Great. Well done. It had been given to her by her mother on the day she graduated from high school. An English, fine china mug with blue daisies painted around it, it had once belonged to her Welsh grandmother. Sniff.
Toughen up. But she had precious little from her past to appreciate that wasn’t in her head.
Write that list.
Start with finding a replacement mug.
The sun was streaming through the wide picture window in the lounge as Sienna hobbled towards the leather recliner chair, picking up pen and paper from the sideboard drawer on the way.
Buy Christmas presents for all the kids on the ward to take in on my first day back at work.
Really? She’d never done anything like that before, but now a frisson of excitement caught at her. Why not? The parcels would have to be generic as she didn’t know each child personally, but kids were kids, and they’d enjoy getting a gift.
The leather was warm from the sun. The paper remained blank. Sienna grew drowsy. The events of yesterday were playing havoc with her mind and body.
Spread your wings.
Take flying lessons, she scrawled, and let the ennui flattening her take over.
Blink, refocus. Collect stamps. She shook her head and held her pen firmly away from the paper. Not her thing. Anyway, where did a person find stamps these days?
Buy a new bike. Learn to cook Italian food. Design pretty scrubs to wear on the ward.
This was silly. Who wrote lists of how to get on with their lives? Besides, she didn’t want to alter her life too much. She liked knowing how each day would pan out. Like she’d seen yesterday’s crash coming? That only went to show it was better to keep some form of control going on. She dropped the pen and pad on the carpet. Didn’t lean down to align the pen with the edge of the pad.
Wow. Letting loose, Si.
No, just too tired and sore to move. Her eyelids drooped.
The sound of her SUV coming up the drive woke her. But Harrison didn’t stop there. Oh, no; using her remote control, he opened the garage and drove in. No stopping the guy when he was on a mission.
A mission to help, Sienna.
True. But she wasn’t used to someone wandering through her space as though they belonged there. Then he was coming right inside, calling softly, ‘Sienna, it’s Harry. How’re you doing?’
‘Fine. I’m in the lounge.’ She wanted him to come in? For the first time in years it felt a bit lonely in here, but Harry wasn’t the fix she needed. He was a good neighbour, he might even be becoming a friend, but she couldn’t rely on him to be around forever. He was like her father, always on the move, and she would never go back to that lifestyle, not for anybody.
‘Your car’s back. I’m going to drop Connor home. Anything you need while I’m in town?’ He came into the lounge and the room instantly shrank around her, the air filled with something intangible yet vibrant.
Talk about making it harder to push him away. Friendly, easy-going. It wouldn’t be difficult to forget she wasn’t in need of anyone else in her life. ‘No, thanks.’
‘You get any sleep?’ He stood in front of her, those mesmerising eyes scanning her in a professional capacity. ‘You still look exhausted.’
She supposed he was thinking medicine and nothing else. Why would he? A man with his looks and body could have any woman he chose, not some mashed-up doctor with chips the size of rocks on both shoulders. ‘I got some,’ she growled. ‘I’m fine.’
Stepping back, he sighed long and loud. ‘I’m sure you are. I’m going to the supermarket. If you think of anything I can get you flick me a text.’ He reached down for the pen and notepad. ‘Here’s my number.’ A quick scrawl and he handed the pad over and left the room without a backward glance.
When she looked down the annoyance he usually managed to crank up arrived in full force.
Stop sweating the small stuff, had been added to her list. Her list. Not his to play with. Bet he always knew what he was doing. Again she asked herself: Who did Harrison Frost think he was, coming in here like he owned the place, telling her what to do?
Snatching up her pen, she scribbled another line, just to remind herself she was in charge here. Not Harrison.
Then the pen fell from suddenly lifeless fingers as she stared at the pad. Oh, no. Big mistake her writing that previous left-field thought on her list. Now she was definitely on the back foot. Harry would be laughing so much he’d wet himself.
Find a man to have a fling with.
The words beamed off the page. She might as well have hung a sign at the front door. What had she been thinking? Stuck on Harrison, that was where her brain had been. The sooner she got back to work the better.
* * *
Swinging into his drive, Harry stared across at Sienna’s apartment. All the curtains were wide open, so she hadn’t gone back to bed when it was obvious she was dropping with exhaustion. Stubborn woman.
Find a man to have a fling with.
He hadn’t been able to get the words out of his skull for one second. His body was sitting up, ready to play ball, if he was the man she was looking for. But he rubbed her up the wrong way too often for that to happen.
He grinned. He’d also be in trouble for adding to her list. Bring it on. Feisty was good, kept things interesting, and put the brakes on getting too friendly. The problem being the more he saw of her the more he wanted to find out what made her tick. He wanted to be that man on her list. But did she actually mean it? Compared to other women he’d known, Sienna had keeping to herself down to an art form. His grin faded. Come Christmas he’d be out of here. He hadn’t decided where to spend Christmas yet. It depended on where the next job was and when he’d be required to start—if one came up. Right now there was a scarcity of vacancies, which was a pain in the backside. Never before had he had a problem finding his next position; sometimes he’d had two or more to choose from. If nothing came up he’d take a break and go on a short trip somewhere exciting. The fishing was supposed to be good on the Coromandel.
Out of his four-wheel drive, he rescued the groceries from the warm back seat and headed indoors, and couldn’t stop himself taking another look over the fence on his way. No sign of Sienna.
Groceries unpacked and stored, Harry checked his phone. No messages. No jobs. He gazed around the apartment, identical to Sienna’
s if he didn’t factor in his tee shirt on the table, shoes by the fridge and yesterday’s breakfast dishes in the sink. There hadn’t been a single thing out of place next door. Not a one. How did anyone live like that? He couldn’t, not if his life depended on it. There wasn’t any point to being über-tidy.
Right now he had time on his hands that had to be used somehow. Not something he was used to. The washing he’d put on before heading out to Titirangi needed hanging on the line. That’d fill all of five minutes.
The lawns. They were getting out of hand, grass halfway up his calves in some places. The electric mower wouldn’t make enough noise to disturb Sienna if she was asleep. Her lawns could do with a tidy-up as well. Though the grass would barely reach his ankles, he’d observed how she liked to keep it immaculate. Might win some points along the way.
Joke, Harry, joke.
An hour later Harry switched the mower off, and immediately wished he hadn’t.
Sienna was coming towards him in an odd slow, limping kind of way with fire in her eyes. ‘You didn’t need to do that. I am quite capable of mowing my own lawns.’
‘Thank you, Harry, for doing that job. I really appreciate it,’ he snapped back, warning his heart to stop feeling quite so sorry for her. Heart? Didn’t he mean head? Absolutely.
She stumbled, righted herself quickly. ‘Yes, well, sorry. I mean, it was kind of you, but it’s a bit of a mess.’ She blushed.
Finally some colour in those cheeks he had to resist running a finger down. ‘A mess?’
The red hue deepened, and the blue in her eyes glittered like that lake when the sun was going down over it. ‘Um, it’s just that I like to mow up and down in straight lines.’
And he’d started at the far corner and gone round and round until he reached the centre. He stared at this woman. What the hell difference did it make? The grass was cut, done for another week; two if they were lucky with the weather and the spring temps didn’t encourage too much growth. ‘Whatever,’ he said in a churlish tone that he instantly regretted. He wasn’t a child, didn’t do spoilt. If she wasn’t happy with him then she wasn’t. Not his problem. ‘I promise not to mow them again.’