Page 25 of A Country Practice Christmas
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘I want the full experience. Let me sink to the bottom and roll about in death throes. You rush in like we’re in an episode ofBondi Rescue.’
And before he could tell her how nuts this was, she was gone.
Well, not gone, just submerged.
He ducked under the water, opening his eyes into the slight grit, and there she was. He reached out. And that’s when he realised that the act of laying your hands on a woman about whom you had recently been having lustful thoughts kicked up that lust factor by about a thousand percent.
He put his hands on her waist. Both hands. A span of waist. But you know the thing about a woman’s waist? It was nothing like grabbing one of your mates in a game of touch footy and flinging them into the mud. A woman’s waist was so very, very near other stuff. Breasts. Hips. Curves. Thighs. Collarbones. Every-bloody-thing, in fact, that he now wanted to put his hands on.
And then he pulled her towards him so she was against his chest. One of his arms reached down to snag behind her thighs, and the other curved behind her back. He headed upwards to the sun.
‘You want to explain to me what we’re really doing here today?’ he said.
He was smiling, but Jodie could see there was a serious question in those few words.
‘Okay, but it will sound daft.’
‘I love daft.’ And it was easy to believe that he did, here in the cool water, with the sun warming their shoulders, and the rustle of a breeze high up in the tall trees beyond the rocks.
‘I suppose I wanted to see if it was possible to feel young again. Carefree. You know, like I did all those years ago when you rescued me.’
‘You can’t hurry your way past grief, Jodie.’ His smile had dimmed a little, but his arms were still around her. His eyes were still warm. They had come a long way from that moment on the slippery path in the pub garden.
‘I feel,’ she said, a little amazed at her own willingness to just say flat out what she was feeling rather than shy away, ‘like you might have rescued me again.’
‘As much as it swells my pride to be thought a hero, there is no undertow here today.’
‘Not from the water,’ she said. ‘I have been living such a small version of myself for so long, and coming here, chatting with you, worrying about Carol—which reminds me, I haven’t even given you the latest update in the Christmas cake war saga yet—has cheered me up, Will. Given me purpose. You’ve saved me from myself.’
For which she was so grateful, she slipped her hands up his shoulders, grabbed his neck, and kissed him.
Chapter 11
Jodie ran nervous hands down her short denim skirt. Any minute now, the bell beside the flyscreen door was going to sound throughout the house and then—
Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong …
Huh. Will’s parents, Robbo and Patty, had impatient fingers. Onedingwould have sufficed.
‘That’ll be them,’ she called to Carol, who was fussing about in her room doing heaven knew what. A waft of gardenia had floated out of the bedroom door earlier and she’d heard beads clinking. Clearly, being taken to a matinee theatre performance in Lismore was a big deal.
‘Keep them out of my kitchen,’ Carol said. ‘Robbo is one of the judges this year and I’m not having my cake entry disqualified over some technicality like him being in my kitchen during the cakefeeding process. You never know who’s driving by, reporting on the comings and goings through my front door.’
Jodie had been as jumpy as a possum on a powerline since dawn, waiting for the day’s secret squirrel plan to unfold. She felt slightly guilty that she (well, Will, really) had only come up with the idea as a ruse to get Carol out of Clarence for a few hours. Why hadn’t she been organising outings for Carol? Why hadn’t she thought about how much joy Carol might feel at the opportunity to be driven somewhere and entertained?
Because you’ve been morose. And healing. Which takes time.
Yeah, maybe so, but note to self: Ask Carol what day trips she’d like to do since you’re ready and willing to drive her anywhere.
She pulled open the door, and there they were, the parents of the man she’d wantonly snogged in the rock pool two days ago. They were looking at her with wide eyes and absolute fullblown curiosity and her first thought was,Oh my God, did Willtellthem?
‘You must be Jodie,’ said the woman. Will had described his mother as a town matriarch every bit as involved and meddlesome as Carol, but in appearance, Patty Miles was as unlike Carol as it was possible to be. Where her great aunt favoured colourful, flowery dresses and sensible sandals and steel-grey hair cut in a no-nonsense fashion, this woman looked like she’d stepped out of one of those Hollywood movies from the sixties set in the Sahara, where flowing linen robes and lashings of eyeliner were de rigueur. Come to think of it, Will’s dad had a bit of an Omar Sharif vibe to him. Now she knew where Will had got his looks.
‘Hi,’ she said. And then, inanely, ‘Carol says you can’t go into the kitchen.’
‘I thought I could smell baked fruit and whisky,’ said Patty, as the pair of them came inside. The tiny foyer felt very crowded all of a sudden—mostly because Patty’s outfit had more fabric in it than a linen closet.
‘Will tells us you’ve been helping him set up the pub gardens for the Twilight Markets.’
