‘I expect you know what I’m talking about.’
Mac’s accident had left him with serious burns, but it had left a young apprentice fighting for his life. She remembered Russ’s relief when the young man had finally been taken off the critical list.
‘What I’m trying to say is that it’s made me reassess my life. It’s forced me to admit I wasn’t very happy, that I didn’t really like my job. I don’t want to spend the next twenty years feeling like that.’
She blew out a breath.
‘So when Russ found out you needed a housekeeper and mentioned it to me I jumped at the chance. It’ll give me two or three months to come up with a game plan.’
* * *
Mac stared at her. ‘You’re changing careers?’
‘Uh-huh.’ She looked a bit green.
‘To do what?’
She turned greener. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’
He knew that feeling.
Mac didn’t want to be touched by her story—he didn’t want to be touched by anything—but he was. Maybe it was the sheer simplicity of the telling, the lack of fanfare. Or maybe it was because he understood that sense of dissatisfaction she described. He’d stalled out here in his isolation and his self-pity while she was determined to surge forward.
Maybe if he watched her he’d learn—
He cut that thought off. He didn’t deserve the chance to move forward. He’d ruined a man’s life. He deserved to spend the rest of his life making amends.
But not at the expense of other people. Like Russ. Or Jo.
‘You’re wrong, you know?’
She glanced up. ‘About...?’
‘You seem to think you’re plain—invisible, even.’ Not beautiful.
‘Invisible?’ She snorted. ‘I’m six feet tall with a build some charitably call generous. Invisible is the one thing I’m not.’
‘Generous’ was the perfect word to describe her. She had glorious curves in all the right places. A fact that his male hormones acknowledged and appreciated even while his brain told him to leave that well enough alone.
He leaned back, careful to keep the good side of his face to her. ‘You’re a very striking woman.’ Don’t drool. ‘So what if you’re tall? You’re in proportion.’ She looked strong, athletic and full of life. ‘You have lovely eyes, your hair is shiny, and you have skin that most women would kill for. You may not fit in with conventional magazine cover ideals of beauty, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t beautiful. Stop selling yourself short. I can assure you that you’re not plain.’
She gaped at him. It made him scowl and shuffle back in his seat. ‘Well, you’re not.’
She snapped her mouth shut. She wiped her hands down the front of her shirt, which only proved to him how truly womanly she happened to be. The colour in her cheeks deepened as if she’d read that thought in his face.
‘There’s another reason I’m here,’ she blurted out.
The hurried confession and the way her words tripped over themselves, the fact that she looked cute when flustered, all conspired to make him want to grin. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled, let alone grinned. He resisted the urge now too. In the end, grinning... Well, it would just make things harder, in the same way the sunlight and the sea breeze did.
But he did take pity on her. ‘Another reason?’ he prompted.
She moistened her lips. Like the rest of her they were generous, and full of promise.
‘Mac, one of the reasons I came out here was to ask if you would teach me to cook.’ She grimaced. ‘Well, if we’re being completely accurate, if you’d teach me to make a macaron tower.’
His every muscle froze. His nerve-endings started to scream. For a moment all he could see in his mind was fire—all red and heat. A lump the size of a saucepan wedged in his throat. It took three goes to swallow it.
‘No.’ The word croaked out of him.
He closed his eyes to force air into protesting lungs and then opened them again, his skin growing slick with perspiration.
‘No.’ The single word came out cold and clear. ‘That’s out of the question. I don’t cook any more.’
‘But—’
‘Ever.’ He pinned her with his gaze and knew it must be pitiless when she shivered. ‘It’s absolutely out of the question.’
He rose.
‘Now if you don’t mind. I’m going to do a bit of work before I retire for the night. I’ll move my sleeping quarters to the end bedroom tomorrow.’
She seemed to gather herself. ‘I’ll clean it first thing.’
That reminded him that she meant to do a grocery shop tomorrow too. ‘There’s housekeeping money in the tin on the mantel in the kitchen.’