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Josh was—crap—was he leaning towards her? Was he going tokiss her? She had about sixty thoughts all at once, none of them connected, none of them making any sense. A few were along the lines ofthis is sudden,andwoah there, Vera, you hate guys right now,but the big clamouring all-caps one was sayingDO IT, DO IT, DO IT!

At the last second, common sense prevailed. At least, that’s what she told herself as she turned her head to the side and his hot, stubble-rough mouth pressed a kiss into her cheek. Chickened out was what she’d really done.

She dragged in a long breath. ‘About that wine,’ she said, ‘not a good idea.’

He held his hands in the air then gestured towards the old-fashioned timber staircase to the next floor. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I thought … well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. What matters is that we’re being neighbourly, and to be honest when I said wine, I may have been exaggerating. There’s beer, that I can promise. And I wasn’t joking about the stale loaf of bread.’

Poppy’s footsteps clattered up the corridor behind them. ‘Relax, Vera. I can make us a green tea. It’ll be like a practice run for when I start making tea for customers.’

The girl looked so pleased, she didn’t have the heart to turn her down.

‘Sure. Just a quick one, though, I have work tomorrow.’

‘Cool! Me too? I mean, you do want me to start tomorrow, right? I’ve only got a few days, I need to learneverything.’

Vera smiled. Crazily enough, this almost felt like fun. ‘Sure, tomorrow sounds fine. Six am.’

‘Six am?’ The girl’s shriek nearly splintered her eardrums.

She heard Josh give a snicker of laughter beside her. ‘Oh, I amsopersuaded, Vera De Rossi.’

CHAPTER

11

He wasn’t sure what madness had led him to try and plant his lips on Vera’s. He could kid himself and blame it on the euphoria of having Poppy safe under the Cody roof, but that hadn’t been the reason.

Vera was the reason.

There was a stillness to her that had drawn him in from the moment he’d laid eyes on her standing stiff and uncomfortable behind her cake cabinet; and there she’d been, in his shadowed hallway, light from the dusty bulb turning her auburn hair into flame, and those watchful eyes of hers doing something to his willpower that was, frankly, baffling.

He’d been leaning forward to check if she tasted as good as she looked before he’d had time to consider what the hell he was doing.

Kissing women he barely knew was not part of his homecoming plan.

Family was. Heritage was. Which was why he was at the locked door of the old cottage on the foreshore waiting for Marigold and Kev to get the heck here already.

He looked at his watch. He had a cranky pig with mastitis who was due for another shot of antibiotics before lunch, and an even crankier sister who had filled his afternoon list with more appointments than he could count.

Still. Taking a moment by the lake on a spring morning, with a wide stone step to sit on and a sun-warmed timber door at his back … he smiled. He’d had worse mornings.

His mind drifted back to the kiss he’d nearly bestowed on Vera, and how she’d tilted her head, turning the moment from sweet to awkward in a heartbeat. So, kissing him wasn’t part of her life plan, either, but for a second there? When her eyes were on his and her lips were so close?

He rubbed his hand over his face. Oh yes. For a second there his blood had roared in his ears and his lungs had seized and the look in Vera’s eyes had switched from watchful to startled to something way, way sweeter.

She was a puzzle.

If he was a prudent guy, he’d accept the rebuff, sling his stethoscope round his neck and get on with the things heoughtto be thinking about … like his vet practice. Like building himself a life in Hanrahan that Poppy could feel proud to be a part of.

But prudence didn’t warm a guy’s heart, not like the new café owner seemed to. Besides … there was no rush to decide, was there? He was in Hanrahan, she was in Hanrahan, and neither of them were going anywhere.

‘Somebody’s looking pleased with themselves this morning.’

He squinted into the sun, and there was Marigold, standing over him in a floaty whatsit that made her look like a giant cuttlefish. ‘Hi, Marigold. Thanks for meeting me.’

‘Don’t thank me yet, my love.’

Ominous words from anyone … but particularly ominous when they came from the town’s busiest woman. He was here to access the historical society’s archives, currently tucked up in storage boxes in the community hall while the electrics were replaced, for old photos of the Cody building. If Marigold thought he’d be slipping into some lycra and joining her yoga class as thanks, she was mistaken.