Page 7 of So That Happened
Make small talk. You can do that, right? Just say something, Josie. Anything.
‘You know, you look nothing like I expected,’ she said.
‘No?’ His voice was infused with amusement.
‘You’re so…’ She willed her addled brain to come up with any word except the one fighting to get out.
She lost.
‘Big.’
He turned to catch her eye and she looked away quickly, so as not to get sucked into flirty banter with him – not when she was so close she could inhale the minty aroma of his toothpaste and the dark undertones of whatever product he used on his body that made him smell so – what was the word? Appetising…
Thank God for the soothing action of lifting and snipping at his hair. Mercifully, it helped her maintain focus, although her cool was shot to pieces.
‘Judging by your complexion and the size of your frame I’m guessing there’s some Scandinavian blood in there somewhere?’ she barrelled on.
‘Icelandic.’
‘I’d never have guessed that from your sister; she’s so dark. Hair and complexion.’ Okay, this was good. Well, better. Sort of…
‘She got the French blood.’
‘On your mother’s side?’ Lift, pull, snip.
‘Yeah, my paternal grandmother was French. This was her home. She left it to me and Abi when she died.’
There was a change in his posture and a new tension in his jaw that made her wonder what he’d omitted from that statement. A memory of Abi telling her their grandmother was the only person Connor had ever cared about swam into her mind.
She paused, not quite sure how to frame her next question. ‘Abi says she hasn’t seen you in a long time?’
His head moved up a notch as his shoulders stiffened. ‘No.’
She waited for him to elucidate but the silence stretched on.
‘I think she’d like to see you.’
‘Hmm…’
She’d hit a conversational roadblock. Another approach, maybe? ‘So what keeps you so busy?’
‘I travel a lot.’ His tone was dismissive, as if he were closing down this conversation too.
Don’t give up, Josie.
‘You’ve just got back from somewhere?’
‘South America. I’m leaving for India in a few days.’
Abi hadn’t told her much about Connor – only that he was always on the move and never came to England to see her. They’d been on a rare night out and three cocktails down when she’d talked about him. There had been a heavy sadness to her tone, and an unhappy resignation to his snubbing of her. His name hadn’t been mentioned since and Josie had tactfully avoided asking about him again.
From Abi’s description of him she’d expected a self-aggrandising playboy with power issues – not this challenging, enigmatic giant of a man.
Moving round to the front of him, she made sure to keep looking only at the long fringe of hair left to cut. The heat of his gaze burned her skin as she shuffled between his spread thighs to get close enough to reach in. With shaking hands, she took hold of the front of it, the backs of her fingers gently brushing the warm skin of his forehead. His heat invaded her and she experienced a whole body flush which concentrated into a core of molten lava in the depths of her pelvis. She wished her hair wasn’t pulled back so severely so she could hide her fiery face in the safety of its protective curtain.
After snipping at a few more strands of hair until she was satisfied, she took a step back and dropped the scissors onto the kitchen table.
‘You’re done.’
