Page 28 of Here Comes Trouble
As she pulled the car onto the driveway, she could see Xander in the distance, a mug of coffee in one hand and a paintbrush in the other, standing in front of an easel set up on the lawn, overlooking the lake. He must have heard the car’s engine because he turned round to look her way, dropped his paintbrush onto the grass next to a pallet of paints and strode towards her, waving.
‘Hey, Jess, there you are.’
He stumbled as he walked towards her, spilling coffee down his trousers.
Jess shot him a grin, glad for the distraction from the anxiety about facing him again after the debacle of the night before.
He raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘What’s so funny?’ he said, brushing at the stain with his fingers.
She shrugged, nerves making her jittery. ‘It’s nice to see you making mistakes too. It just proves even the most self-possessed people mess up. I like that, it makes me feel better about myself. If you can spill coffee all over your crotch then it’s okay for me to rip my clothes off in a restaurant. Or something.’
He gave her a puzzled look. ‘You’re a very strange woman, you know that?’
She snorted. ‘Actually, I do. It’s not a new observation.’
He smiled and her blood heated. There was something in his gaze she hadn’t seen before. Something that made her insides flip.
‘Where have you been today?’
‘I went for a drive around the lake. I’m writing a travel piece too, while I’m here, so I wanted to get a feel for the place.’
‘Man, they keep you busy there don’t they?’
She shrugged. ‘I like to keep busy. Keeps me out of mischief.’
He nodded but didn’t say anything, his gaze flicking down to her mouth. She tensed under his scrutiny. He seemed to move closer to her, just a fraction as if he was thinking about going in for a kiss and she froze with anxiety, not at all sure what to do with herself. Her lips tingled at the thought of his mouth, hot and hard against hers.
‘But I-I’m a professional,’ she stuttered in panic and his gaze flicked back to meet hers, amusement clear in his eyes.
‘A professional what?’ His expression was full of barely contained laughter.
Jess straightened her T-shirt. Smoothed down her hair. ‘Here in a professional capacity, I mean, so please don’t feel you have to, you know, look after me or anything.’
He nodded a couple of times, still looking at her as if she was the funniest thing he’d ever encountered. ‘What if I like looking after you?’ His eyes suddenly lit with an idea before she could respond. ‘Hey, why don’t we bring a picnic down to the cove later. It should be warm enough and if we’re lucky we might get a pretty amazing sunset,’ he said, cocking his head to one side while he waited for her to agree.
It sounded much too romantic an idea for her liking, but she couldn’t spend the next couple of days hiding from him like she had today. She still hadn’t got everything she needed in order to write the column, and it would be a good opportunity to ask him some more questions whilst he was relaxed and happy in her company. ‘Yeah, sure, that sounds like fun,’ she said, not giving her cowardly alter ego a chance to interfere.
‘Great. I’ll get Rosa to make a hamper up for us. Shall we say eight o’clock again?’
She nodded dumbly. ‘Yes. Eight.’
‘Okay then.’ He was looking at her so intently she wondered whether there was something on her face.
‘Listen,’ he said, finally breaking the silence, ‘I hope you didn’t think I was being insensitive last night, after we’d talked about your… eating issues.’
He looked genuinely concerned and she felt a rush of affection for him.
‘Nah, don’t worry about it. I think we were both a bit freaked by what happened in the restaurant. I don’t suppose it’s often you have to strip off to save your date from dying of embarrassment.’
He laughed. ‘As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I don’t have a problem with stripping off.’
Jess felt the inevitable warmth creep up her neck at the thought of his naked, toned torso in such close proximity to her. ‘Yeah, well, you don’t need to rein that in on my account,’ she said, flashing him, what she hoped, would come across as an affable smile. She wanted to show him she did still have some vestige of control in the flirty banter stakes.
He raised a dark eyebrow and tipped his head in appreciation. ‘Noted,’ he said, before turning away and walking back to his easel.
* * *
Jess paced the floor of the hall, waiting for Xander to turn up and collect her for their picnic tea.
