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CHAPTER
18
Kirsty looked down at the aqua moped parked between her and one very roguish looking Farmer Joe.
Gone were the grimy fingernails and the cobbler’s peg studded socks and the pawprint covered shirt. Joe Miles in evening-out-at-the-pub wear was quite something.
Moleskins. A forest green shirt that made those rust-coloured eyes of his look like autumn leaves. And that boy-next-door charm smiling at her making her brain stop working.
She took a breath. ‘You think I’ll fit?’
Joe straddled his very un-country scooter, kicked it off its little stand, and cocked his eyebrow as though he was daring her to ditch her hesitation in the gravel of the country pub carpark and climb on board already. His eyes crinkled when he smiled, in a way that had her hesitation turn into a burn. ‘Let’s find out.’
Yowza. She eyed the tiny length of beige vinyl that was—apparently—a totally adequate amount of room for a grown woman to hitch a ride on. The rain was barely a sprinkle, and starshad begun to blink through whatever remained of the clouds. She could bail.
She could totally bail, because walking to her car back on the main street would have taken less time than she’d already spent chatting—okay, fine,flirting—here in the carpark.
But she didn’t bail. Before she could question her motives, she accepted that dare. ‘I’m climbing on,’ she said. ‘Only … how?’
‘Left foot over. Grab on to me. That little storage pod on the back might be a nuisance, but just shimmy about a bit until you’re comfortable.’
Shimmy. What a word; it described to perfection how her insides were behaving …
She followed his instructions and found herself snugged firmly up against his back. ‘Huh,’ she muttered.
Joey cocked his head to the side, so she could see his lips move beyond the enamel shine of his helmet. ‘You okay?’
‘This is cosy.’ She was so smooshed up she could feel his ribs move as he laughed.
‘You can hold the little bar at the back, or you can hang on to me. I won’t read anything into it.’
He didn’t need to. Whatshewas reading into their current tight fit was plenty all on its own. Before she could answer, he twisted one of the handles and the moped roared (okay, fine, sputtered) to life beneath them.
She wrapped her arms around her farmer, and with a clatter of gravel at her feet, and icy raindrops scudding against her cheek, they were off.
Joey was warm, and he smelled amazing. She should know … her nose kept bumping into the folded collar of his shirt, and if she leaned forward—like, half an inch forward—she’d have her lips on his neck.
Blimey.
He wants your plane, she reminded her stupid hormones.He wants to cash in on Bill’s legacy, she added, because her hormones were still sniffing their way along his collar to the nape of his neck, where tiny little dark hairs grew in the shape of a vee.
She tried to remember when she’d last held anyone so close. Not for months. Not for years, perhaps. Holding people close tended to turn pesky … emotional, needy, dramatic. She’d back away citing work commitments, difficult hours. Maybe she’d move jobs. Move town.
Blame fate.
But boy oh boy, fate had currently got her snugged up pretty tight against the farmer whose property she had tied herself to for the foreseeable future.
Joe drove the moped through the old stone gates marking the pub’s driveway. He turned down the lane that curved along the banks of the river, then gunned the machine for the small rise up to Lillypilly Street.
And there was her ute, as she’d left it, tail-lights to the kerb to meet the archaic demands of Clarence’s reverse angle parking signs. She’d have parked further away if she’d known how the evening was going to end.
He killed the engine and drifted to a stop beside her ute.
Well. She should get up. Get out.Haul ass, as the TV shows she was partial to watching until the early morning hours in her tiny cottage in Port Augusta would say.
‘Here we are,’ said Joe.
She managed to unstraddle herself somehow. ‘Um, thanks,’ she said. ‘I guess … I’ll see you up at the farm.’ Shoot, had that sounded like she was making a move? ‘In the morning,’ she clarified, ‘bright and early, tooled up and ready to renovate.’
