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13
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Lena felt blindsided. Never in a million years would she have thought Heath’s surprise would be an appointment with a real estate agent or property manager or whatever the heck Hunter Sullivan was.
On the one hand, it was really sweet that Heath had not only listened to her half-murmured impression of the abandoned farm, but he’d done something about it. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to get her inside the place, and maybe instead of seeing it as him trying to get rid of her, she should see it as him trying to keep her nearby. On the other hand, she hadn’t really decided she was staying in Bindarra Creek, and now she was pretending to be in the market for a whole farm. She’d be lying if she didn’t admit that after the night they’d shared, she’d been thinking maybe they could… but that was stupid—crazy! She’d known Heath for all of two days, but she’d started to hope. It was obvious now that what she was hoping and what Heath was thinking were two different things.
On top of it all, instead of helping her pull off the charade of being on the hunt for a house, Heath hung back, a silently looming presence following a few steps behind as Hunter took them inside.
It was a rambling old place that had clearly seen better days. Back home in California, houses like it on acreage didn’t exist for under half a million dollars—and that was only if they were out in the middle of nowhere, like the little town Carissa was from.
“Look, it’s got carpet in here now.” Hunter pulled up the edge of the hideous brown indoor/outdoor carpet. “Amazingly, the original timber floors are underneath, and they still look good.” He looked from Lena to Heath and back again, judging their reactions before continuing through the entryway, into the living room, then across to a turquoise laminate-countered galley kitchen that could only be described as ‘dated’ and not in the good ‘retro’ kind of way. “It’s all livable, just needs some TLC. It certainly has good bones.”
They moved back into the hallway, and Hunter pointed to the stairs leading up to the second storey. “Shall we?”
She’d barely taken a step onto the stairs behind him, when the man ran a hand along the banister.
“Plenty of original woodwork throughout.” His palm came away from the railing, covered in dust. “All in good shape and ready to shine again with a bit of elbow grease.” He brushed his hand on his pants and proceeded.
“Lots of space for a family, up here.” Hunter’s tone was of the elbow-nudge and wink, wink variety. He clearly had the wrong idea about Heath and Lena’s relationship.
Behind them, Heath stifled a strangled noise with a cough.
It was quite the sales pitch, and it just kept going as they poked their heads in each of the three upstairs rooms. Lena didn’t need a real estate agent to tell her which rooms were bedrooms or that the house was well-built but needed work. That much was obvious as they walked through the musty rooms. What wasn’t so obvious was how she was supposed to pay for the place, or the renovations it needed, on savings from her string of second place finishes. She had no idea what else Heath might’ve told Hunter about her or her plans, thanks to Heath going back into silent Grinch mode the minute they’d arrived.
Still, if she was getting an official tour, she wanted to see everything. “Can we take a look at the barns?”
“No worries. I understand the original owner was quite the horseman.”
“So?What’s the verdict? Want to make an offer?” Hunter’s deep drawl suggested she might get it for a song, or maybe it was just his usual sales pitch. Lena didn’t know.
She had to force herself not to shoot a look at Heath. “Well… I think it has a lot of promise.”
The truth was, the place would be perfect, with a lot of elbow grease. There were plenty of stalls for horses, one barn with a Kentucky-style indoor track running around the stall block, so horses could be exercised in inclement weather. There was a hay barn, a sixty-foot round pen for training young horses in, stalls with paddocks, pastures, and even a lighted outdoor arena overgrown with weeds. She could do so much with the place. But it was a huge risk. All she had was a dream—and no income to support it yet. “I’m really not in the market to buy anything. But if your clients are interested in renting it out, then I guess I’d need to see the terms before I can decide anything. I really wasn’t thinking I’d find something this large, and to be honest, I don’t know if I can afford it. Or afford what needs doing.”
“How about I’ll get with the owners and when we come up with some figures, I’ll be in touch? Same number as before?”
“No,” Heath said at the same instant she said, “Mine would be better.”
She gave Hunter her contact information. “I’d like to have yours too, if you don’t mind?” She whipped out her phone to enter in his phone number, but her hands were so shaky that as she did, she lost her grip. The phone went flying, landing at Heath’s feet.
He bent to retrieve it, but when he straightened, his entire expression had changed. Normally, his brow was a millimeter shy of furrowed, his eyes were somehow guarded, and his mouth wasn’t exactly a frown but it wasn’t a smile either. This was different. His lips were pressed so straight they’d gone pale and the muscles in his jaw ticked tight. His eyes flashed. Something was wrong. She grabbed the phone from him and what she saw on its screen made her stomach feel as if it had been drop-kicked.
Contrary to her usual policy of never wanting to be more focused on her phone than on real life around her, she’d turned on her phone’s notifications at Carissa’s insistence. It was just too easy to miss messages with the time difference. Apparently, while they’d been meeting with Hunter, Carissa had finally gotten around to responding to the gushy messages she’d sent earlier, while Heath was still asleep. What Lena had revealed about her night with Heath was just enough to make her bestie curious… and indiscreet.
In bright lettering across her phone, was a message notification from Carissa that was impossible to ignore.
GO, YOU! Way to get that Christmas rebound! Holiday fling for the win!
Heath had most definitely seen it. Which was mortifying. From the way his expression went from his usual serious, gruff one to a blank mask, she didn’t think he was happy about what he’d read. Nobody liked being labelled a rebound or a fling.
She was going to kill Carissa.
Except… was Carissa wrong? Maybe what she felt for Heath was all just the pent-up lust from eight months of being in a long-distance relationship that wasn’t. But he’d looked out for her—a complete stranger. He’d treated her better than her own supposed boyfriend of two years had. He’d given her a place to stay. He’d protected Copper. He’d hung up Christmas lights for her, gotten a Christmas tree, and then humoured her and her gaudy Christmas decorations. He’d rescued her from spiders, and then he’d given her a really freaking good orgasm that made her forget about everything else.
She didn’t know what she was doing with Heath, but she didn’t think he was a rebound. The attraction between them was more than that. The hurt that had zagged through her when it seemed like maybe Heath was trying to get rid of her, wasn’t just because she’d already been stung by Zach’s rejection. It was because it had made her realise it was all probably too good to be true—there was no way someone she’d just met could put her first the way he had.
She cleared the notification and handed her phone to Hunter, so he could enter his contact information.
