Single Dads Collection. Lynne Marshall
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almost made her turn back.
Sammy jumped up to rest his front paws against her thighs. She patted him. ‘You don’t care if I’m fat or frumpy, do you, Sammy?’ It was one of the reasons she loved dogs … and children. Sammy wagged his tail and it gave her an absurd kind of comfort. ‘Okay, then.’ She hauled in a less-than-enthusiastic breath. ‘Tally-ho.’
She started to jog. Her brand new sports bra was supportive, but not quite as supportive as she’d hoped. Maybe she needed to adjust the straps again. Though, if she tightened them any further she’d cut off the circulation altogether. The bra started to scratch and irritate the sides of her breasts. It hadn’t done that in the fitting room. ‘No pain, no gain,’ she muttered to Sammy. She’d bought an identical sports bra in a size smaller for Month Two when she’d lost some weight. Both bras had been horrendously expensive. When she’d paid for them she’d told herself the expense would provide her with an added incentive to exercise. She’d thought the expense would translate into comfort too. She’d been wrong about that.
By the time she and Sammy reached the fence she was gasping for air. She sagged against a fence post. It took a concerted effort not to sink to the ground. Oh God! She glanced at her watch.
Three minutes?
No!
She shook the watch. She held it to her ear. It ticked away in perfect working order. She swallowed. ‘Okay, Sammy, amended plan,’ she panted. ‘We jog for three minutes, then walk for three minutes.’
She set off again, fighting doubts and discouragement. She’d known this would take time. It wasn’t possible to undo a lifetime of couch-potato-ness in just one day. Besides, she had a lot of chocolate sultanas to shift from her hips and thighs.
To distract herself from bursting lungs and legs that had started to burn, she forced herself to gaze at her surroundings. The quality of the light would’ve stolen her breath if she’d had any to spare. The clear blue of the sky and the sun low in the sky behind her outlined everything in perfect clarity. It enchanted her, even as half her attention had to remain on the path she took to avoid tussocks of grass and rocks that had definite ankle-turning potential.
She glanced at her watch and sighed. ‘Time to jog again, Sammy.’
They set off at a jog, slower this time, and when her lungs started to burn again she reminded herself how much her new trainers had cost—four times what she’d paid for the bras. She was going to get her money’s worth out of them. She could keep running for another—she glanced at her watch—one and three quarter minutes. She glanced down at her feet to admire the way the red dirt had already tarnished the brand-new perfection of her trainers when Sammy chose that moment to leap in front of her in pursuit of a grasshopper. It happened too quickly for her to avoid contact with him, to dance out of the way, to regain her balance or for anything except a full-frontal plough on her stomach through red dirt. When she came to a halt she blinked and spat out the grit that had found its way into her mouth.
Very elegant, Nicola.
True. But she took a few seconds to savour the sweet stillness of her body until Sammy, distracted from his prey by her fall, chose that moment to plaster wet licks all across her face.
‘Sammy, heel!’
Sammy immediately obeyed as a shadow fell across her.
Oh, God! Cade. With a groan she rolled over and sat up. Why did her most undignified and humiliating moments have to occur in full public view?
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No.’
He turned and waved some signal and that was when she saw another two men—workers of Cade’s, she supposed—standing outside the barn. They returned to work. The realisation that so many people had witnessed her pathetic attempt at fitness, not to mention her clumsiness, made her cheeks burn and her hands clench.
‘C’mon.’ Cade held a hand out to her.
Scowling at him and telling him to go away obviously wasn’t an option, so she put her hand in his and let him haul her to her feet. He hitched his head in the direction of the homestead and didn’t release her until she nodded her agreement.
Wiping the dirt from her face and the front of her T-shirt … and her shorts and her knees, she managed to avoid his eye. ‘You don’t need to escort me back.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
His voice shook with laughter. She closed her eyes, more heat scorching her cheeks. She wasn’t sure what was worse—him being aware of her utter mortification or him thinking her cheeks were this red from such a pitiful amount of exercise.
‘I want to make sure you haven’t really hurt yourself—twisted an ankle or a knee—but you seem to be walking all right.’
If that was a cue to make her trip up, she had every intention of disappointing him. ‘I’m fine.’ Except for a bruised ego.
‘Good. Then you and I are going to have words.’
Her heart sank. Marvellous.
He made her sit on the back steps while he inspected her knees and elbows for scratches. ‘We’re a long way from a doctor,’ he said when she started to object.
She stared at the sky and tried to ignore the warmth of his fingers on her flesh.
Finally he subsided onto the step beside her. ‘So what’s with the jogging?’
Heat flared afresh in her face and neck. ‘Oh, I …’
She had to look away. There was something about those blue eyes that saw too much. He’d laugh at her. Her lips twisted. Just like her friends in Melbourne would’ve laughed if they’d seen her earlier this morning. The butt of oh-yet-another joke.
‘Nicola?’
What the hell? She lifted her chin. She was through with turning herself inside out to please other people. ‘I thought I’d take advantage of all the wide open space and fresh county air to …’ she swallowed in readiness for his laughter ‘… to try and get fit.’
She clenched her hands. Strong in body. Strong in mind. It might not happen overnight, but she could work towards it. She could change. She gritted her teeth. Losing her fiancé to another woman did not make her a loser or a failure.
‘Dry dusty air at this time of year more like.’
She didn’t say anything.
‘You didn’t have a water bottle with you.’
That was when it hit her—he hadn’t laughed yet. And one look at his face told her he wasn’t going to. He didn’t think her plan of getting fit was stupid at all. Instead, he was going to tell her off for not taking a water bottle. ‘I thought with it being so early and all …’
‘If I see you without a water bottle the next time you go jogging, we will have serious words, you understand?’
She swallowed and nodded.
He frowned. ‘It’s a bit early for New Year resolutions, isn’t it?’
‘Getting fit and losing weight was this year’s resolution,’ she sighed. ‘I’m trying to get it in under the wire.’
His chuckle held no malice or ridicule. It warmed her blood. ‘Getting fit is an admirable goal, but losing weight …’ He shook his head. ‘Seems to me women get too hooked up on that stuff.’
If she’d been half a stone lighter and had taken more care with her appearance, maybe Brad wouldn’t have dumped her for Diane.
Cade sent her a lazy appraisal from beneath heavy-lidded eyes and it did something ludicrous to her insides, made them light and fluttery. She didn’t like it.
‘Anyway, you look just fine to me,’ he said with a shrug.
Her