Captivated By The Single Dad. Barbara Hannay
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me?’
He offered her a rueful smile. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’
‘You kissed me to shut me up?’
Gray merely shook his head and Holly sank back against the rock in dismay.
What a klutz she was.
She’d gone into swoon mode, allowing herself to be completely carried away, while Gray had merely found a new technique to stop her from asking nosy questions.
‘I’m an idiot,’ she said out loud.
‘No, Holly.’
‘What am I, then?’
His answer was a smiling shake of his head. ‘Another question? I should’ve known it’s dangerous to kiss a teacher.’
‘Yes, you might learn something,’ she snapped, but her response was even testier than she’d intended. She’d never been any good at jokes, and light-heartedness was doubly impossible when she was so upset.
Damn Gray. She could still feel the warm pressure of his lips on hers. She could still smell him and taste him, could still feel the ripples of pleasure pooling low and deep inside her, like aftershocks.
But for Gray the kiss had been a game, a purely practical ploy to stop yet another annoying conversation.
Not daring to look at him, Holly jumped up quickly and, in a bid to cover up her embarrassment, she began to tidy away their picnic things.
As they took the climb back to the top in easy stages, Gray was uncomfortably aware that he’d spoiled a perfect day. He’d let Holly think that he’d kissed her to distract her and, yes, it was true. More or less. She’d pushed their conversation in a direction he had no wish to follow. She’d been holding his feet to the fire of a secret shame and he’d had to stop her.
It was a bad habit that had started during his marriage. Whenever his wife had come up with one of her grand schemes for getting them away from Jabiru Creek, he’d found it easier to seduce her than to tell her the truth—that he had no employable skills beyond running this cattle property.
But, although his initial impulse to kiss Holly had been self-preservation, everything had changed the instant their lips had touched.
A kind of spell had come over him. Admittedly, it was way too long since he’d kissed a woman, so that might explain why he’d been so totally fired up. But abstinence couldn’t explain why he’d felt emotionally connected to Holly, or why there was so much that felt right about kissing her, so much that felt right about just being with her.
In spite of her nosy questions, she was amazingly easy company, and she was surprisingly at home here in his Outback. He found himself wanting a deeper connection with her, and his body still throbbed with a need to lose himself in her sweet, willing embrace.
It was a lucky thing that her soft needy cry had brought him to his senses. Without that warning, he might never have found the willpower to stop. But now he’d hurt Holly by once again going into defensive mode. He’d protected himself, but he’d spoiled something special.
Damn it, he should have known better.
Hadn’t his marriage taught him that he was no match for a clever, educated woman, no matter how strong her appeal? Hadn’t his life lessons proved that he was better on his own?
He was fine on his own.
Or at least he would be until his kids’ education caught up with him.
The journey back to the homestead was wrapped in uncomfortable silence, which meant Holly had plenty of time to brood as they rumbled across the trackless plains.
She thought about the moment, while she and Gray were looking down at the gorge, when she’d experienced a feeling of true connection with him. In the same moment, she’d realised something else—she hadn’t wanted to fall for Gray but it had happened, almost against her will.
Which meant he had the power to hurt her, just as Brandon had.
She shouldn’t have allowed him to kiss her. Why hadn’t she shown more sense? Here she was—still suffering from shell shock after Brandon’s dumping—and the last thing she wanted was another romantic entanglement—especially with Chelsea’s ex.
She wanted freedom, not complications. Why would she put her heart at risk when she had a fabulous job lined up to go home to?
Please don’t read too much into it he’d said.
How could Gray kiss her into oblivion simply to shut her up? What was his problem? Where was the crime in asking him about his school? Or about his lack of books, for that matter.
He knew schools and books were her thing, and just because—
Oh, my God.
A sudden chill skittered down Holly’s spine as all sorts of puzzling things about Gray suddenly started to fall into place.
The lack of books in the Jabiru homestead. The fact that he’d never heard of Winnie-the-Pooh. His reaction in New York when she’d suggested he should read to his children. The way he’d waved away menus, and brushed aside the Central Park pamphlet—
Could he have literacy problems?
She stole a glance at him now…at the snug stretch of denim over his thighs to his strong, sun-weathered profile.
Gray Kidman…expert cattleman, gorgeous, take charge of anything…
Surely he couldn’t be illiterate?
It was hard to take in.
But if he’d grown up out here, miles away from schools and possibly without a tutor, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to believe that he might never have learned to read. He probably knew a few words that enabled him to function— Departures and Arrivals in airports, for example—but beyond that—
Holly remembered his mother’s lack of warmth. What had her role been in her son’s early years? Had the tension between them started decades ago? Holly knew from her teacher training that literacy problems often stemmed from emotional issues connected to early schooling experiences.
She also knew that illiterate people could still be incredibly astute and competent—and Gray was clearly intelligent and gifted. He made up poetry in his head. How many people did that? With Ted’s bookkeeping help, he managed his business very successfully.
Her soft heart ached to think that a proud and capable man like Gray could have a problem he’d felt compelled to hide, managing superbly in spite of it.
Then again, she might be overreacting—jumping to totally incorrect conclusions.
The last of the daylight was turning the paddocks to pink and mauve as they pulled up outside the homestead. Crickets and katydids were already singing their dusk chorus in the trees by the creek.
Anna and Josh, freshly bathed and in their dressing gowns and slippers, came running down the front steps to greet Holly and Gray, while Janet hurried after them like a fussy mother hen.
‘They’ve been no trouble,’ Janet assured Gray. ‘They’ve been busy in the school room for most of the day.’
‘I thought they’d be playing with their puppets,’ he said.
‘The puppets have had a good airing, but mostly they’ve been doing their homework.’
‘Homework?’ Holly frowned. ‘But I didn’t set any homework.’
‘Well, they’ve been beavering away on some kind of writing project for the puppet house.’ Janet laughed. ‘I’m definitely renaming them Shake and Speare.’
‘We’re going to have a puppet show after dinner,’ Anna explained with great excitement. ‘And there’s a part for everyone.’
Out of the deep pockets of her cherry-red