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‘It got you here an hour late,’ he replied, wiping his face with the end of the towel.
‘Shh,’ she hissed. ‘Keep your voice down.’
‘Why?’
‘She might hear you.’
‘Who?’
‘Jezebel my jalopy, of course,’ she said, hoping to deflect the caustic tone with humour. Just because he had a point about her car, she did not want to argue about it. The last thing she needed to do right now was generate more heat between them. ‘She’s sensitive.’
His lips tilted. ‘The car’s a girl. That figures.’
The heat level shot up another few thousand degrees, and Tess decided that making him smile hadn’t been the smartest idea. His eyes drifted over her face for a moment that felt like a millennium.
‘Follow the road past the house,’ he said at last, his voice rough but businesslike. ‘The cottage is past the cypress grove on your left. I’ll meet you down there. I need to change.’
‘Where are you going to change?’ she asked in a breathy whisper as the sudden vision of him peeling off those trunks made her tongue swell.
His dark brows quirked upwards as his eyes heated. ‘At the pool house.’
‘Okay... That’s an excellent idea.’ She stumbled over the words, the air rushing out of her lungs on a deflating sigh. ‘Right, then. I’ll see you at the cottage.’
As she trudged back to her car she forced herself not to watch him as he walked back towards the pool. She really did not need to see his beautiful backside framed by tight-fitting Lycra. Her resolve was crumbling fast enough already.
Denial was the only sensible option in their situation. But as she climbed back into the sweltering car and stabbed her keys into the ignition she wondered why the sensible option didn’t make nearly as much sense as it had before she’d seen Nate Graystone dripping wet.
CHAPTER TEN
‘PLEASE, Jezebel, give me a break.’ Tess jerked the keys in the ignition for about the fiftieth time and prayed.
The car wheezed, whined, shuddered to life for a second, then coughed and died. She slapped the flat of her hand on the hot dash and wanted to cry.
Squeezing back tears of frustration, she flopped back into the scorching seat and gave up. ‘You traitor. Gee thanks, Jezz.’
No matter how much she begged, the car was not going to start. It really was a heap of junk. And now she was stranded in Nate’s driveway having never even got as far as his cottage.
Her humiliation was complete when she saw his tall figure, clad in a black T-shirt and faded jeans, strolling towards her from the direction of the pool.
Well, at least he had some clothes on now, she thought, dismissing the stupid stab of regret as she got out of the car.
Yet more good news she thought, as she waited for him to reach her. Even though he looked almost as devastating in faded denim as he had in virtually nothing, the low pounding of her pulse had been effectively drowned out by the stabbing headache taking hold of her temples. Good to know, the remedy for an e
xtreme case of sexual frustration was heat exhaustion.
‘Problem?’ he asked, without a trace of the superiority she had braced herself for.
‘Sort of. I think Jezebel finally died on me,’ she replied honestly, all her belligerence having drowned in a pool of wretchedness. Was nothing in her life ever going to go right again? How the heck would she be able to accept his offer of the cottage out here if she didn’t have a car? It was probably a five-mile drive to the nearest store.
Leaning into the Car’s open window, he located the lever under the dash and the car’s bonnet popped open. He lifted the hood with his usual economy of movement and propped it on the metal upright. Dismay filled Tess as she followed his gaze and saw the sizzle of water spitting from the radiator cap.
Nate tucked his hands into his back pockets and gave his head an ominous shake. ‘That doesn’t look too healthy.’
‘Maybe if we refilled it?’ Tess asked with more desperation than conviction. ‘Would that fix it?’
‘I doubt it would fix it for long’
‘But you don’t know for sure?’
