A Diamond in Her Stocking. Kandy Shepherd
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redder. ‘Maybe I was just fooling around with you.’
‘Maybe you were.’
‘Maybe I’m the player,’ she said. There was a return of that teasing spirit he’d liked so much, a spark that warmed her cool grey eyes. He found himself wanting her to smile.
Jesse only vaguely remembered Lizzie from her first visit to Dolphin Bay. She’d been sixteen, beanpole-thin and flat-chested. He’d been sixteen, too. But testosterone had well and truly kicked in and he’d considered himself a man.
He wasn’t ashamed to admit he hadn’t found her attractive then. He’d been a typical teenage boy who’d looked to the more obvious.
That summer, his brother Ben had been busy falling in love with Sandy. Jesse had been busy trying to decide between three curvaceous older girls who’d made their interest in him more than clear. He hadn’t chosen any of them. Even then he hadn’t valued what came to him too easily.
When he’d met Lizzie again, more than twelve years later, he’d been knocked over at the woman she’d become. Elegant; sensual without being blatantly sexy; classy. Now she wore simple narrow-legged jeans and a plain white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Her hair was tied back off her face in a plait. She looked sensational without even trying.
‘Are you a player?’ he asked. ‘I somehow doubt that.’
Her eyes dimmed and it was as if that hint of party-girl Lizzie had been extinguished again. ‘No. I’m a divorced single mum with a social life on hold indefinitely. I’m here to work hard at making this café a success and to devote myself to Amy.’
‘I get that,’ he said. ‘Being a lone parent must be one of the toughest gigs around.’
‘Tougher than I could have imagined,’ she said. ‘But it’s worth it. Amy is the best thing that ever happened to me.’
‘You were young when you had her.’
‘Becoming a mother at age twenty-three wasn’t part of my game plan, I can assure you. But I don’t regret it even for a second.’
He frowned. ‘Where is Amy? Didn’t she drive down with you from Sydney?’
Lizzie’s daughter was a cute kid; she’d been the flower girl at the wedding and charmed everyone. He’d been sorry he hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye to her too.
‘She’s spending the school vacation in France with her father and his parents. They love her and want her to grow up French. That’s another reason I have to make a success of this café. Philippe would like sole custody and is just waiting for me to fail.’
Sandy had told Jesse a bit of Lizzie’s background. The domineering father. The early marriage. The break-up with the French husband. She hadn’t had it easy. Just as well nothing more had happened with them at the wedding. He wouldn’t want to have added to her burden of hurt. He knew what that felt like.
‘You’ll have a lot of support here,’ he said. ‘Sandy’s a Morgan now and the Morgans look after their own.’
‘I know that. And I’m grateful. But I’ll still have to work, work, work.’ She took a deep breath, looked directly up at him. ‘I’m truly sorry I misread the situation with your cousin. But what happened between us at the wedding can’t happen again; you know that, don’t you?’
Relief flooded through him that she had no expectations of him. She was lovely, quite possibly the loveliest woman he knew. But right now he didn’t want to date anyone either. Not seriously. And Lizzie was the type of person who would expect serious.
‘Lizzie, I—’ he started, but she spoke over him.
‘I told you my social life is on hold. That means no dating. Not you. Not anyone.’
‘I get that,’ he said.
His life was so far removed from Lizzie’s. His job took him to all the points of the earth for extended periods of time. If he ever committed to a woman it would have to be someone without ties. Camilla would have been ideal—a freelance photojournalist with no kids, feisty, independent. But what had happened with Camilla had soured him against getting close to her type of woman.
‘Good,’ Lizzie said, rather more vehemently than his ego would have liked.
‘I hope you can remember what we had at the wedding as no-strings fun that I certainly don’t regret,’ he said.
She nodded. He didn’t know whether he should be insulted, the way she was so eager to agree.
‘But it—’ he started to say.
‘Can’t happen again,’ she joined in so they chorused the words.
He extended his hand to her over the counter. ‘Friends?’
She hesitated and didn’t take his hand. ‘I’m not sure about “friends”—we hardly know each other. I don’t call someone a friend lightly.’
He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. ‘Yep.’
Her eyes widened at his abrupt reply. ‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ she said. ‘Just honest about what I feel.’
Yeah. She was. But her honesty had a sharp edge. All in all, it made him wonder why he’d want to be friends with her anyway. Especially when he knew she was off-limits to anything more than friendship. It would be difficult to be ‘just friends’ with someone he found so attractive. That two-hour limit he’d set himself on the time he spent with her might just be two hours too much.
‘So “just acquaintances” or “just strangers stuck with each other’s company” might be more to the point?’ he said.
She gasped. ‘That sounds dreadful, doesn’t it?’ Then she disarmed him with a smile—the kind of open, appealing smile that had drawn him to her in the first place. ‘Too honest, even for me. After all, we can try to be friends, can’t we?’
‘We can try to be friends,’ he agreed. Two hours at a time. Any more time than that with her each day and he might find himself wanting more than either of them was prepared to give. And that was dangerous.
‘Okay,’ she said, this time taking his hand in hers in a firm grip, shaking it and letting it go after the minimum contact required to seal the deal.
LIZZIE LEANED BACK from the last of the artworks they’d rewrapped to send back to the artist, kneading with fisted hands the small of her back where it ached. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘All done, thank goodness. That was harder work than I’d thought it would be.’
‘But worth it,’ said Jesse from beside her.
‘Absolutely worth it. The paintings add to the atmosphere of the café like nothing else could. I hope the artists come in so I can thank them with a coffee.’
But Lizzie felt exhausted. Not just from the effort of unpacking, holding the paintings up against the wall and then repacking the unwanted pictures. But from the strain of working alongside Jesse.
In theory, learning to be ‘just friends’ with him should have been easy. He was personable, smart, and seemed determined to put their history behind them. Gentlemanly, too—in spite of his shoulder injury he insisted on doing any heavy lifting.
Trouble was, she found it impossible to relax around him. She had to consider every word before she uttered it, which made her sound stilted and awkward. The odd uncharacteristic nervous giggle kept bubbling into her conversation.
Could you ever be just friends with a man you’d kissed, wanted, cried over? Especially when that man was so heart-stoppingly attractive. Could you pretend that time together had never happened?
She would