AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Who?” The words were English, but he swore sometimes she was speaking a foreign language.
She laughed again. “They’re kind of like pancakes, but not.”
“If you’re making them, yeah, I like them.”
She pointed her fork at him, as if she were tapping him with a wand from across the room. “Good answer!”
She went back to whatever she was doing, and he leaned against the door jamb, watching, when what he really wanted to do was spin her around, lift her up onto the kitchen counter and see what they could get up to in the kitchen. Instead he made himself stay put, wondering how the hell his life was going to go back to normal once she was gone.
They’d just finished brekkie,a word Lena swore she was going to immediately adopt into her vocabulary, when his phone rang. From somewhere in the vicinity of the couch. He found it on the floor, just as the call—from a number he didn’t recognise—went to voicemail.
He waited for the message—if there was going to be one—to appear, and sure enough it did. Something important, then. He had an idea what.
“G’day, Heath. This is Hunter Sullivan, over at the Stock and Station Real Estate Agency. I got your number from Jon over at the nursery. He said you had some interest in seeing the acreage out on Diggers Lane? Call me back, I’ve got some availability today and could run out there, if that would suit you.”
He looked over at Lena, seated at the table in the breakfast nook, hunched over her phone, tapping away like mad. Probably to her best friend. He wondered what, if anything she might say about him. But it wasn’t his business, was it?
“I’ve got to take this call.” He held up his phone so she could see it and she gave him a quick nod before going back to whatever she was doing. He took that as his cue and headed out the French doors to the back porch and then to his workshop.
He was buzzingwith excitement when he got back inside. “Get dressed, luv. We’ve got an appointment.”
“An appointment? For what?” She was already taking her hair down, smoothing it into a less messy ponytail.
“A surprise.” He had a feeling she was a fan of surprises, given how she’d showed up on his doorstep, but he’d meant to tell her what he’d set in motion the night before. But there had been spiders. And other distractions. “It’s nothing fancy. Wear practical shoes. We’ll take my ute.”
“Ute?”
He didn’t know what to call it in American English. He rephrased. “I’ll drive.”
Lena was practically vibratingwhen she came out to his ute, dressed in jeans and a floral-printed top that tied at the neckline. He had to quash the urge to reach out and untie that bow—maybe later. If his surprise went well.
He opened the back door for Copper who did a flying leap into the cab, then held open the front passenger door for Lena.
She flashed him a smile, her eyes crinkling at their corners. “Who would’ve thought that Heath Fletcher, Grinch of Bindarra Creek, would have a surprise for me?”
Her tone was light and teasing, while his heart was skittering, skipping beats. He might well be overstepping. For a second, he wished he’d never listened to that message, that he’d never made the appointment. Or better yet, that he’d never mentioned a thing about the abandoned farm to Jon at the nursery. All he wanted was to go back inside his cottage and spend the day with Lena, figuring out what to do with the potted gum tree and its spiders. Or finishing the rocking horses in his workshop. Or, if he was honest, carrying Lena back to his bed.
Except Lena couldn’t stay at his house forever. He knew what he needed to do, and what he had planned was a step towards that.
He put the ute in drive and let off the brake. When he pulled out of his driveway and turned right towards the rock pool instead of left towards town, Lena shot him a look, her eyebrows raised in a question.
“You can ask, but I’m not answering any questions.”
She let out a frustrated growl. “Fine. Keep it a surprise. But there’s only two things down this way and I’ve seen them already.”
“You sure about that?”
She stuck her tongue out, and it pulled a laugh from him. There was no one else in his life anymore who could do that. Bloody hell, he hoped she liked what he’d done.
They were at the abandoned farm in one minute, maybe two.
“See? I knew there were only two things!” She only gloated for a second though, because then the car parked in front of the old farmhouse came into view. “It’s not abandoned? Are we meeting someone? Here? What for?”
“Not telling.” He eased the ute next to the sedan, and as he did, a male figure stepped out of the farmhouse and onto the front porch. Suddenly it seemed like a very bad idea that he hadn’t told Lena what to expect. “You wait here for a minute.”
“Absolutely not!” Her hand was already on the door handle.
He grabbed her wrist. “Just let me be the gentleman, open the door for you, yeah?” At that she stilled.
