Mills & Boon Showcase. Christy McKellen
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She twirled around in the space between the counter and a crammed display of travel paperbacks.
‘It even smells wonderful in here. The wood, of course. And that special smell of books. I don’t know what it is—the paper, the binding.’ She closed her eyes and inhaled with a look of ecstasy. ‘I could just breathe it in all day.’
No.
His fists clenched tight by his sides. That was not what he wanted to hear. He didn’t want Sandy to fit back in here to Dolphin Bay as if she’d never left.
He wanted her gone, back on that highway and heading south. Not connecting so intuitively with the magic his great-aunt had tried to create here. Not being part of his life just by her very presence.
How could he bear to have her practically next door? Every day she’d be calling on him to ask advice on how to run the shop. Seeking his help. Needing him.
And he wouldn’t be able to resist helping her. Might even find himself looking in on the off chance that she needed some assistance with Aunt Ida’s oddball accounting methods. Maybe bringing her a coffee from the hotel café. Suggesting they chat about the business over lunch.
That couldn’t happen. He wouldn’t let it happen. He needed his life to stay just the way it was. He didn’t want to invite love into his life again. And with Sandy there would be no second measures.
Sandy threw herself down on the low, overstuffed sofa his aunt provided for customers to sit on and browse through the books, then jumped up again almost straight away. She clasped her hands together, her eyes shining with enthusiasm. ‘It’s perfect. I am so going to enjoy myself here.’
‘It’s only for a few days,’ he warned. ‘I’ll talk to the agency straight away.’ Again his voice was harsher than he’d intended, edged with fear.
She frowned and he winced at the quick flash of hurt in her eyes. She paused. Her voice was several degrees cooler when she replied.
‘I know that, Ben. I’m just helping out until you get a manager. And I’m glad I can, now that I see how much of her heart your aunt has put into her shop.’
Avoiding his eyes, she stepped behind the counter, placed her hands on the countertop and looked around her. Despite his lack of encouragement, there was an eagerness, an excitement about her that he found disconcerting. And way too appealing.
She pressed her lips firmly together. ‘I’ll try not to bother you too much,’ she said. ‘But I’ll need your help with operating the register. Oh, and the computer, too. Is all her inventory in special files?’
He knew he should show some gratitude for her helping out. After all, he’d been the one to make the ill-conceived suggestion that she should stay. But he was finding it difficult when he knew how dangerous it might be to have Sandy around. Until now he’d been keeping everything together in his under-control life. Or so he’d thought.
‘I can show you the register,’ he said grudgingly. ‘The computer—that’s a mystery. But you won’t be needing to operate that. And, besides, it’s only temporary, right?’
‘Yeah. Very temporary—as you keep reminding me.’
This time she met his gaze head-on.
‘But what makes you think I won’t want to do as good a job as I can for your aunt Ida while I’m here? You heard what she said about needing every day of business.’
‘I would look after her if she got into trouble.’
The truth was he didn’t need the rent his great-aunt insisted on paying him. Could easily settle her overheads.
‘Maybe she doesn’t want to be looked after? Maybe she wants to be totally independent. I hope I’ll be the same when I’m her age.’
Sandy at seventy-five years old? A quick image came to him of her with white hair, all skewered up in a bun on top of her head, and every bit as feisty as his great-aunt.
‘I’m sure you will be,’ he said, and he forced himself not to smile at the oddly endearing thought. Or, by way of comparison, look too appreciatively at the beautiful woman who was Sandy now, on her thirtieth birthday.
‘What about paying the bills?’ she asked.
‘I’ll take care of that.’
‘In other words,’ she said with a wry twist to her mouth, ‘don’t forget that I’m just a temporary caretaker?’
‘Something like that,’ he agreed, determined not to make it easy for her. Though somewhere, hidden deep behind the armour he wore around his feelings, he wished he didn’t have to act so tough. But if he didn’t protect himself he might fall apart—and he couldn’t risk that.
She looked up at him, her expression both teasing and serious at the same time. But her voice wasn’t as confident as it had been. There was a slight betraying quiver that wrenched at him.
‘You know something, Ben? I’m beginning to think you don’t want me in Dolphin Bay,’ she said, her eyes huge, her luscious mouth trembling. She took a deep breath. ‘Am I right?’
He stared at her, totally unable to say anything.
Images flashed through his mind like frames from a flickering cinema screen.
Sandy at that long-ago surf club dance, her long hair flying around her, laughing as she and her sister tried to mimic Kate’s outrageously sexy dancing, smiling shyly when she noticed him watching her.
Sandy breathless and trembling in his arms as he kissed her for the first time.
Sandy in the tiniest of bikinis, overcoming her fear to bravely paddle out on her body-board to meet him where the big waves were breaking.
Sandy, her eyes red and her face blotchy and tear-stained, running to him again and again to hurl herself in his arms for just one more farewell kiss as her father impatiently honked the horn on the family car taking her back to Sydney.
Then nothing. Nothing.
Until now.
He fisted his hands so tightly it hurt the harsh edges of the scars. Scars that were constant reminders of the agony of his loss.
How in hell could he answer her question?
CHAPTER FOUR
HE SAID SHE showed her emotions on her face? She didn’t need a PhD in psychology to read his, either. It was only too apparent he was just buying time before spilling the words he knew she wouldn’t want to hear.
For an interminable moment he said nothing. Shifted his weight from foot to foot. Then he uttered just one drawn-out word. ‘Well...’
He didn’t need to say anything else.
Sandy swallowed hard against the sudden, unexpected shaft of hurt. Forced her voice to sound casual, light-hearted. ‘Hey, I was joking, but...but you’re serious. You really don’t want me around, do you?’
She pushed the rain-damp hair away from her face with fingers that weren’t quite steady. Gripped the edge of the countertop hard, willing the trembling to stop.
When he finally spoke his face was impassive, his voice schooled, his eyes shuttered. ‘You’re right. I don’t think it’s a great idea.’
She couldn’t have felt worse if he’d slapped her. She fought the flush of humiliation that burned her cheeks. Forced herself to meet his gaze without flinching. ‘Why? Because we dated when we were kids?’
‘As soon as people make the connection that you’re my old girlfriend there’ll be gossip, speculation. I don’t want that.’
She swallowed hard against a suddenly dry throat, forced the words out. ‘Because of your...because of Jodi?’
‘That too.’