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But in the late afternoon he heard the music coming faintly from the kitchen. No doubt she was in there baking up a tsunami of sweetness. They were going to be buried in biscuits at the rate she was going. His stomach rumbled. Maybe a little sugar wasn’t such a bad thing.
He glanced out of the window at the view across the garden to the wall and the snow-covered fields beyond. The church spire in the centre of the small village was only just visible through the lightening clouds. The locals would be pleased the bad weather was lifting, the farmers’ market was on early in the weekend and attracted many people to town. Jasper would be able to arrive and she would leave with him. That was good.
But an idea occurred to him. One he couldn’t resist. It would be easy to arrange and amusing to watch. He wanted to see her dimple peep when she smiled one last time. He picked up his phone and put his rusty voice into action.
Then he made himself work some more. He had to pay before their final moment of lightness and pleasure. But in the end the temptation grew too strong.
He silently prowled down to the kitchen. Sure enough, she was there, meeting his stare with pink skin tinged with sugar and eyes filled with cautious reserve.
He stopped just inside the door, forcing his muscles to stillness, but his body was a riot of want. He blatantly stared, trying to read her thoughts—her desire. Because he didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to talk. This couldn’t be about talking or sharing. This could only be about the physical pleasure and release they found with each other.
‘Come upstairs with me,’ he asked. His voice sounded husky and alien to his own ears.
She didn’t speak, but she moved. Slowly she walked towards him. His muscles tightened with every step she took, at the acceptance and anticipation in her gaze. His desperation burned through his reserve. Finally she was near enough for him to touch. A feral growl escaped him. He didn’t give a damn about the twinge in his leg as he lifted her up. He just had to hold her. Had to have her. And it had to be now.
* * *
Zara rose super early again the next morning. She’d been unable to sleep once he’d gone from her bed. And he’d left her only moments after tearing her soul apart with pleasure.
It had only been the once and that devastated her. Was he trying to pull away? Did he want this to be over? Had that conversation yesterday been too intense for him?
Intuition told her the truth.
This wasn’t what he’d wanted. He lived here in isolation because he liked it that way and he wasn’t planning on changing any time soon. That awareness made her heart ache.
‘You’re baking at stupid o’clock again?’ His dry question interrupted her ruminating.
Startled, she looked up and forced a smile at him. ‘It’s not that stupid.’ It was only a little after six in the morning now. ‘There wasn’t much other work to do. I didn’t think you’d mind.’
‘I don’t mind.’ He reached over the kitchen bench and snaffled one of the warm cupcakes. ‘But I think you have far too much food here for us to eat. It’s just going to waste.’
‘That doesn’t matter. I was only trialling some recipes.’ She hadn’t made complete batches, she’d been switching up different ingredient amounts and additions to test new flavour combinations for the fragrant shortbreads. So far she had lavender, violet, pineapple, sage and primrose.
‘It’s not good to waste food, Zara. There’s a ton of hungry people out in the world,’ he chided gently.
She smiled for real as she transferred biscuits one by one from the tray onto the cooling rack. His mood had lightened; that was good. ‘What do you want to do with it?’
‘I’ve booked a stall at the farmers’ market today.’
‘You’ve what?’ She nearly dropped the tray and all the biscuits on it.
He grabbed the end of the tray, rescuing their load. ‘Let’s see how well they sell.’ He grinned at her.
‘Oh, no.’ She put the tray carefully on a board and wiped her hands on her cloth. ‘They’re not good enough. I’m not ready. Don’t they need to be inspected by the food police or something?’
‘Stop panicking and relax. It’s fine. I checked with the manager of the market. He’s going to bring some supplies so you can bag and tag the goods before we start. Your baking is delicious and we’re not throwing it in the compost. Give it all away as free samples if you like and ask people what they think of it. You can think of it as product-testing research.’ He leaned against the table, a curious smile hovering at his mouth.
She breathed in and straightened up as she began to think about it properly. In all, it wasn’t that bad an idea.
‘I’ve put a fold-up table by my car already,’ he added helpfully.
That was when other implications of his offer hit her.
‘You’re going to take me into the village?’ she clarified.
He was going to leave his lair to help her out on this crazy whim?
‘Sure, I’ll drop you in there.’ He straightened and turned away.
Did that mean he wasn’t going to stay with her? Because she really wasn’t sure she wanted to do this on her own. Not in a new village. At least up north she’d had one of her fellow students with her to keep her company when she’d started in the market round there. And she did want him to stay with her. She wanted him to get out and have some fun outside his cave. Even on a frosty cold morning.
‘I thought you could go through the cupboards to choose some plates or something to display them on,’ he said, distracting her completely. ‘You need to be quick though—the market opens in ninety minutes and you need to get set up.’
She didn’t even have any signs made up. Or prices. Or a cash float...
But maybe she could wing it. Giggling to herself, suddenly giddy with excitement, she spent twenty minutes poring over the fine china. There were so many beautiful treasures she was scared of breaking them. ‘Are you absolutely sure about this?’ she asked as she handed a box of her selections to him. ‘Some of these are worth a lot—’
‘They’re just sitting in storage.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s good for them to be used.
Tomas loaded the boxes and the table into his big four-wheel-drive.
‘Stop looking so scared,’ he teased. ‘It’ll be fine.’
It wasn’t so much the market that she was scared of. It was him leaving her right away to go back into hermit-man mode.
The market was larger than she’d expected and quite the beautiful affair with charming displays and beautiful hand-crafted goods and foods.
‘I’m not dressed well enough,’ she despaired as she checked out the ‘posh country’ attired women.
‘You look good enough to eat,’ he murmured, a lewd look in his eye.
‘But I don’t have bunting. Or fairy lights. I can’t compete.’ She half laughed, but felt more like crying as nerves threatened to get the better of her.
‘You have antique crockery, sweetheart.’ Tomas waved one of the priceless plates at her before carefully placing her decadently iced violet cake on it. ‘You don’t need to compete.’
But once he’d helped her set up the small table and bag the bulk of biscuits and cake slices, she clutched the sleeve of his thick coat. ‘Please don’t leave me alone to do this.’ She hoped it wasn’t bad to call upon that chivalrous instinct she knew he had.
‘Zara, I can’t stay—’
‘Of course you can. You don’t have to give your name. No one will recognise you behind the sunglasses. And with the woollen hat you look like a tourist or something. Truly. Please,’ she begged him. ‘Please, please, please. Please stay with me.’
All of a sudden that plea had a whole other meaning to her, and too late she realised she’d sounded too heartfelt.
He gazed at her, an arrested expression in his eyes as he wavered. Then he blinked and expelled a sharp breath. ‘Ten minutes to get you started, then you’re on your own.’
She was so happy she beamed at him, swiftly reaching up and pressing a
quick kiss to his lips before she’d thought better of it. ‘Thank you.’
* * *
Ten minutes into it there was no way he could leave; there were too many people crowding the stall. Forty minutes into it they were in danger of running out of stock.
‘I’ll go get the rest from the car, you stay here,’ Zara said while he was dealing with a customer, quickly leaving before he had time to turn and argue with her.
